


i don’t wanna be your friend (i wanna kiss your lips)

by AdeleDazeem



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: (or at least I think it’s humorous), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Background Handon, Character Study, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Hosie endgame obvi, Idiots in Love, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Or Is It?, POV Alternating, Pining, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, there are a lot of feelings, unfortunately no one seems to know what to do with them 9.5/10 times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 48,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdeleDazeem/pseuds/AdeleDazeem
Summary: “friendship is never untinged with amorosity.” - Virginia Woolfor: This is the story of how Josie Saltzman and Hope Mikaelson meet, become best friends, and then slowly lose their minds.There are a few steps in between, but that’s basically the gist.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 202
Kudos: 710





	1. Part I: Fall Semester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> — Josie’s POV —

The first time Josie and Hope meet Josie is sweaty and out of breath from having run halfway across campus in the late August heat. 

Josie can feel her hair sticking to the back of her neck and she just knows there are sweat stains on her top where her backpack’s resting. This is not how she imagined starting her Junior year. She’s officially an upperclassman, damnit. And yet, she stumbles into the Business Writing 101 class, late and out of breath, like a pathetic freshman. 

It’s not her fault she’s never been in the business school and the layout makes zero sense.

Thankfully, the instructor is nice about it. “Oh, honey! How nice of you to join us,” the older woman says to Josie like she’s her favorite granddaughter, not a random red-faced student. “We were just about to start an icebreaker. Why don’t you go take a seat and we can begin? I think there’s a spot next to Hope.”

“Uh... Sure,” Josie says, returning the woman’s smile. Everyone is staring at her and it only further highlights how disgusting she feels. She quickly heads to the open seat in the back of the class next to a girl with auburn hair. This must be Hope if the smile she’s giving Josie is anything to go by.

“Hi,” Josie says, sliding into the chair and dropping her backpack to the floor.

“Hi,” the other girl says back. “Rough day?” 

“You could say that,” Josie chuckles, pulling the hair off her neck and trying to not think about just how gross she no doubt looks and probably _smells_ in comparison to this girl’s perfection. Seriously, Josie’s curls never stay that nice in this humidity. Out of all the girls she could have sat next to, of course it’s the one who looks fresh as a daisy. Josie fans herself as discreetly as possible. “I didn’t realize how far this building was from the rest of campus.”

“Yeah, we’re our own little world over here.”

Josie is about to agree when she realizes everyone is looking at her. Again. The instructor is smiling encouragingly at her from the front of the class. Oh. The icebreaker. 

“Uh,” she says, kicking herself for saying it two times in as many minutes. “So, I’m Josie,” she says to the rest of the class and gives a dorky little wave that she immediately hates herself for. You’d think she’d get the hang of this by now. “I’m a Junior in the Comparative Lit program.” 

She looks up and the teacher is still smiling at her like she’s expecting more. Beside her, Hope leans over and helpfully mutters “hobbies.”

“Oh,” Josie jumps. “Hobbies. Right. I’m on the Student Inclusivity Board, but that doesn’t really start up until Spring Semester, so… I play ukulele?”

Thankfully, the teacher seems satisfied and turns to look at Hope.

“Hope Mikaelson. Fifth-year senior. Double majoring in Business Admin and History. Hence the extra year. And,” Hope smiles at the teacher (Mrs. Pembroke, Josie remembers absently from her schedule), “when I’m not angsting over what to do with my degree, I like to paint.” A few kids voice their agreement, and then the next kid starts talking and everyone’s attention is thankfully off their table. 

Josie turns back to her backpack to dig out her notebook and pen. She’s still holding her hair off the back of her neck, though, so it’s a little uncoordinated, leaning over and trying to do this one-handed. She curses the decision to wear her hair down on the first day. Desire to make a good first impression be damned.

“Here,” Hope says. Josie looks up to find her tablemate offering her a scrunchie.

“Oh my god,” Josie just might kiss this stranger. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Hope grins as Josie throws her hair up in a quick bun. 

Josie sighs as the ac hits the back of her neck. “Seriously, you are an angel.”

Hope laughs, “I think that’s the first time someone’s called me that sober.”

“Oh fuck,” Josie gives Hope a wide-eyed look. “Were we supposed to be sober for this class?”

“Oh, I like you,” Hope says with a shrewd smile that has Josie’s temperature kicking back up again.

“Girls, if you’re done practicing your interpersonal skills, do you think we might get on with the syllabus?”

Josie flushes at having the classes’ eyes on her for a third time.

“Sorry, Mrs. Pembroke,” Hope says with a smile that Josie is willing to bet has won over many a professor. 

Mrs. Pembroke returns the smile and then goes back to reading through the syllabus. Hope turns to Josie and shoots her a wink before purposefully flipping to the page of the handout they’re on and raising her eyebrows like she’s really, truly fascinated by their list of lecture topics.

Josie wonders why she’s never come to the business school before. Maybe this is where she should have been looking for prospective dates all along.

By the time class comes to an end, she’s surfing along the wave of potential that she feels between her and her tablemate. She and Hope pack up their things and Josie goes to offer Hope her scrunchie back, but the other girl waves her off. 

“Keep it. Your hair looks really cute like that,” the auburn-haired girl says and Josie feels that wave cresting within her chest.

“Let me buy you a coffee, then,” Josie says as smoothly as she can. “As a trade!”

“Oh, I’d love too, but I’m actually supposed to be meeting my boyfriend right now,” Hope says, that wave inside Josie crashing down at the word ‘boyfriend.’ But before Josie can be too crestfallen, Hope’s reaching a hand out to touch Josie’s elbow. “Rain check?”

Josie pastes on a smile. “Sure.”

“Great,” Hope squeezes Josie’s elbow excitedly. “Next class I’ll tell him to shove off and then I’m all yours.” Then Hope is gone, and Josie is left standing there remembering the sparkle of her blue eyes and the way her hair swung like a slo-mo shot from a shampoo commercial.

Josie shakes the thoughts from her head. Hope has a boyfriend. Hope was not flirting with her. She was just friendly. Josie reorders her thoughts to accommodate these new facts. 

It would hardly be the first time Josie has misinterpreted someone's intentions. Plus, based on Hope’s reaction, the other girl hasn’t even realized Josie’s misunderstanding. So, Josie reasons as she heads back out into the sweltering afternoon, it’s basically like it didn’t even happen. And, from the sound of it, she might have just made a new friend!

A very pretty friend, at that… Josie shoves that thought down as she heads to the closest campus coffee shop. She pulls her phone out and texts Lizzie to meet her. Nothing like a little sister time to get over any lingering more-than-friends-feels.

xx

Thursday rolls around and Josie manages to make it to the business school and into her classroom on time. 

“What, no dramatic entrance?” Hope asks.

“Nah, those are really more of a once a week type of thing,” Josie says, sliding into her chair next to the girl.

“Smart,” Hope nods. “Wouldn’t wanna overdo it.”

“Exactly. ‘Too much of a good thing’ and all of that.”

Which, it turns out, is actually pretty much exactly how Josie would describe spending time with Hope. Their easy back and forth continues all through class, then on to coffee, and then pretty much every day after that. It’s nothing _but_ a good thing. It’s unsettling. Things are rarely ever just _good_ for Josie. Surely there must be a catch. 

Instead, Josie finds them forming one of those fast, inseparable friendships university is so good at fostering. It’s hard to tell who is more surprised by this turn of events: Josie, who has had her fair share of classroom-friends over the last two years, or Hope.

“I’m, uh, I’m kind of a loner,” Hope confesses the first time they hang out at Hope’s apartment. Josie’s just innocently remarked how jealous she is that the other girl has the whole place to herself. 

“Like Anarchist Cookbook and trench coat loner or like spend the party hanging out with the dog loner?” 

“The second one,” Hope laughs. “Definitely. I’m so awkward at parties. Too many people,” she waves her hand vaguely and gets Netflix set up on the television. “I barely like people on a good day. Stuffing a bunch of them into a house and lowering everyone’s inhibitions and respect of personal space is just torture for my misanthropic soul.”

Josie blinks. “But you’re so friendly!” 

Hope snorts. “I’m really not.”

“Well,” Josie says, feeling inexplicably defensive. “You have been with _me,_ at least.”

“Yeah, but you’re you. You’re like sunshine in a skirt. Are there people out there who _aren’t_ friendly with you?”

At Josie’s silence, Hope just laughs and bumps her shoulder into Josie’s. “Exactly,” she says, not moving from her position lightly shoved against Josie on the couch.

“I’m sure someone could find me distasteful,” Josie pouts. 

“Yeah, maybe one of those trench coat people you were describing earlier.” Hope pauses her scrolling. “Great, now I want to watch the Breakfast Club.”

So they do. 

As the opening credits play Josie leans over and whispers over the top of ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’, “Whenever you and your ‘misanthropic soul’ ever want loner time, just tell me to shove off, okay? No hard feelings.”

“Deal,” Hope says. “Now shush, they’re about to read the letter!”

“You know, you being an antisocial introvert is making a lot more sense now that I’m seeing what a huge John Hughes fan you are.”

xx

After that, Josie is on the lookout for signs that she’s overwhelming Hope’s lone wolf inclinations. She’s cautious about instigating conversations or hangouts, wary of overstaying her welcome or something. The first couple of weeks, Josie spends expecting Hope to at any moment taper things off. Pump the brakes. Cool their friendship jets. Demand Josie leave her alone already, sheesh. But, she...doesn’t. If anything, Hope doubles down, pulling Josie closer. 

Hanging out at Hope’s becomes a regular occurrence, and soon, at Hope’s insistence, sleepovers do as well.

“It just doesn’t make any sense for you to drive home now. It’s already late and I’ll just be worried about you the whole time. So really, you’d just be doing me a favor by staying.”

Who is Josie to argue with such sound logic? Especially at one in the morning after she’s already fallen asleep on Hope’s couch.

So, she blearily follows Hope to her room and barely remembers to set an alarm before passing out amidst the incredibly soft pillows Hope seems to be obsessed with. She’s pretty sure she remembers mumbling ‘goodnight’ to Hope from the other side of her queen-sized bed, but when her alarm goes off in the morning Hope is wrapped around her like a goddamned koala.

They both groan and roll out of bed and straight to the coffee pot. The snuggling is not discussed. Josie’s spent half her life snuggling with her sister in one of their beds. Hope cuddling up to her during the middle of the night hardly means anything.

Just like it doesn’t mean anything that she and Hope begin to regularly share a bed. It’s just what they do. When Hope isn’t spending the night with her boyfriend, Landon, she’s probably spending it with Josie. 

They’re friends. Friends have sleepovers. Friends leave toothbrushes at each other's places. Friends remember each other’s preferred coffee creamer and make sure to stock up for _friendly_ morning-after breakfasts before class. Josie has pajamas at Hope’s and vice versa and Josie just always makes sure to bring her phone and laptop chargers when she goes to the other girl’s apartment.

It’s hardly a big deal. Hope’s the one with the extra boundaries, after all. If she doesn’t seem phased by the development, Josie isn’t going to be the one to question it.

xx

Josie’s sitting in the second Student Inclusivity Board meeting taking notes, when her phone lights up on the desk next to her notebook. 

It’s a message from Hope. 

Hope had a date or something with Landon last night, so Josie hasn’t seen the other girl since the previous evening when Hope had ducked out of the Downton Abbey marathon early in order to go home and get ready. 

“Next time just bring him here,” Lizzie had told her, flopping over to fill in the space Hope had just left on the couch. “Rookie mistake,” she’d scoffed, now fully horizontal, one end of her in MG’s lap, the other in Josie’s. 

Josie chalked the quick jolt she’d felt at the idea of Hope bringing Landon to their next movie night up to not wanting to be a fifth wheel. 

One of the perks of having Hope around was that Josie finally stopped feeling like a third wheel with her sister and her boyfriend. Yeah, MG had been Josie’s friend for years before Lizzie got her head out of her ass and realized the boy was perfect for her. But that didn’t really matter, because MG quite literally only had eyes for the blonde. Bless him, he couldn’t help it if he tried. 

Having Hope to interact with while Lizzie and MG made heart eyes at each other had been quite enjoyable yesterday. Hope bringing her own boyfriend would kind of throw a wrench in that. Then Josie would just be beset on all sides by heart eyes. Blech.

Not that she’d said any of this last night, of course. 

Instead, Josie slid out from under Lizzie’s feet and as she walked Hope to the door, she’d shaken off her selfish thoughts and tried to be a good friend. “You should,” she’d said, leaning on the doorframe as Hope dug her car keys out from her bag, “bring Landon sometime. I’m sure MG would appreciate a little extra testosterone in the mix.”

Hope had looked up at her for a moment in the deepening purple of dusk and Josie had been worried that her smile hadn’t looked as genuine as she’d hoped before Hope softly said, “I’ll think about it.” Then she’d hugged Josie and got in her car.

Josie checks that the president is still turned towards the PowerPoint he’s reading off of and opens Hope’s text. 

It’s a picture of a squirrel sitting next to an overturned coffee cup. _This squirrel made me think of you_ , is what the message says. 

_I don’t know whether I should be touched or offended._

_neither. you should be jealous. (S)HE is having coffee with me at the moment whereas YOU are not._

Josie bites her lip to keep from smiling like a gigantic dork at that. 

She looks around the room for inspiration. Her eyes skip over the walls, the projector, and the rest of the attendees. She accidentally makes eye contact with a guy sitting to her left and almost ‘eeps’ in surprise, before jerking her gaze back down to her notebook. 

Her gaze lands on the pencil in her hand. It’s one she found in her bag from last semester. It’s a little on the stubby side, which truthfully is how she prefers her pencils, they just fit in her hand better when they’ve been worn down. She twirls the pencil once and smirks. Perfect. 

She snaps a quick pic of it in her hand so the scale is obvious and texts it to Hope. _This pencil made me think of you._

Josie tunes back in to Dr. Schumacher to hear him move onto the board elections they’ll be holding next meeting. She writes the info down and then checks the text from Hope that just popped up.

_why. bc both the pencil & I should be writing notes? _

_No. Because you’re both short._

Hope’s response to that is just the middle finger emoji.

And that’s how it starts. At first, it’s actual jokes that make sense. They trade bad puns and dad jokes and empty chairs where the other _‘should’_ be if it weren’t for pesky classes or meetings or whatever _‘rudely inconvenient’_ previous engagement is keeping the two friends from hanging out. 

Eventually, though, like with most ongoing jokes, it just devolves into nonsense, strung out past the absurd. That’s how Josie’s message thread with Hope becomes studded with pictures of random objects of little to no significance whatsoever, always accompanied by the caption “this xyz made me think of you.” 

It’s usually a pretty good indicator of their respective boredom, like a little flare being shot up over campus ‘help, my professor won’t stop droning on about this author’s misogynistic descriptions of women or...whatever it is they teach Hope in her business classes.’ They’re SOS's, but Josie comes to realize they’re something else, too: little thinly veiled ‘I miss you’s. 

When Hope sends her a picture of a leaf or a random lost shoe in the middle of the lawn beside the library after they’ve only been apart for a few hours, something warm and soft burrows further into Josie’s chest. 

xx

It’s not until the second night of Josie crashing at Hope’s that she notices it. 

“Hope,” she says as she stands at the foot of her friend's bed. “Who in their right mind has this many pillows?”

“I like to feel comfy, sue me.”

Josie didn’t fully grasp it last time she was in here on account of being half unconscious, but there are pillows everywhere. She counts at least five on the bed and that’s only after Hope has piled some into a basket in the corner.

“If I sued you,” Josie says, still stuck on the fact there is apparently a basket in Hope’s room just for pillows. “I’d win because you’ve clearly spent all your money on _pillows_ and could not possibly afford a decent defense attorney.”

“You’re not funny.” Hope gets in bed and immediately turns out the lights, leaving Josie to find her way around in the dark. 

Josie half trips into the bed beside her. She comes up with a face full of pillow, still giggling. “No, Hope, I’m _drowning_. In pillows. Seriously there’s not enough space for both of us and all of these!” Josie holds up two pillows, “It’s me or them.” 

Like the true friend she is, Hope says, “them,” with absolutely zero hesitation. To further prove her point, she snatches the pillows from Josie’s hands and shoves them in the space between them in the bed.

Josie makes a loud buzzer sound with her mouth, “ _Eh_ , wrong answer,” and flings the pillows Hope just situated to the far corner of the room. 

“Hey!” Hope exclaims, now actively failing at containing her own laughter, “What if I needed those for support?”

Josie rolls her eyes. It’s dark and she’s pretty sure Hope can’t see her do it, but it’s the principle of the thing. She lays back down and shimmies into the place the pillows were just occupying and wraps her arm around the other girl. It turns out, Hope is the perfect size to spoon. 

“What are you doing?”

“Supporting you.”

“By accosting me?”

“Go to sleep or else I’m tickling you.”

“I can’t believe I invite you into my bed out of the goodness of my heart, and you repay me by disrespecting my personal property, making fun of me, and _now,_ threatening me.”

“I know,” Josie sighs, snuggling further into Hope and the bed. “Isn’t friendship great?”

Hope groans exaggeratedly, but it’s somewhat undercut when she places her arm over the top of Josie’s and sinks further into the embrace. Josie notices Hope still keeps one pillow tucked in front of her, though. Just to spite Josie, probably. 

xx

Despite Lizzie and Josie’s invitation for Hope to bring Landon around, Josie doesn’t actually see the boy very much. It’s his last semester, she learns, and he’s apparently pretty busy tying up loose ends before graduation, lining up a job, and hanging out with his own friends. 

“He says you guys have joint custody. lmao,” Hope once texted Josie. And that’s kind of a fair assessment. Their time with Hope usually doesn’t overlap. 

This afternoon is a good example. 

Josie’s standing outside the library, soaking up some precious late fall sun while she waits for Hope when the other girl turns the corner with her boyfriend in tow. They’re holding hands and Landon is saying something that’s making Hope smile, and for a knee jerk moment, Josie wants to look away, doesn’t want to see this soft, maybe private, moment. 

But then, Hope is looking up and smiling at Josie and she and Landon are pulling to a stop in front of her. 

“Alright, ladies,” Landon says, smiling and holding up the hand he’s still got tangled with Hope’s. “I have to get to class. Which means, Josie, you are officially responsible for this one now.” 

Then he dorkily transfers Hope’s hand to Josie’s. Josie’s seen the Olympic torch passed with less solemnity and care. He presses their hands together between both of his like a preacher at a wedding ceremony, then gives Josie a quick wink. 

She knows it’s stupid, but it’s so unexpected and he does it with such a deadpan expression, she finds herself laughing. She can see what her friend might see in this guy. 

Hope rolls her eyes. “You’re so dumb,” she says to him. Not that that stops her from leaning in when he kisses her cheek. The grin Landon gives Hope is a little hard to look directly at. It’s just. So loving. 

“You two have fun, okay?” He says, already walking backward in the direction of what Josie thinks is the mass comm building. “Josie,” he shoots a salute her way and then turns back to Hope, the grin back on his face as he looks at his girlfriend, “I’ll see you later, babe.”

“Bye, babe,” Hope calls. There’s that grin again, this time reflected on Hope’s face, too, and then he’s slouching off to class.

Hope finally turns to look at Josie, the grin still unchanged. “Hi, babe,” she says cheekily, swinging their still clasped hands between them. 

Josie snorts. “Hi, babe,” she mimics, pretty sure her grin is just as dopey as Landon’s had been. “Ready for coffee and studying?”

“Yes to the first part, no to the second,” Hope pouts, but drags Josie to the library doors all the same. 

Hope doesn’t let her hand go until they’re in line for coffee and Hope has to dig her phone out of her bag to pull up her Starbucks app. Josie decides not to think about this fact too hard. 

xx

“So is Josie short for something?”

“Yes,” Josie says without looking up from her notebook. “It’s short for ‘do your fucking homework, Hope.’”

“Wow,” Hope deadpans. “What a coincidence for your parents to name you such a highly specific phrase and now, here we are, nineteen years later, and it’s finally realizing its potential.”

“It’s no coincidence,” Josie says, highlighting a passage carefully, lower lip tucked between her teeth in concentration. There’s nothing worse than making a highlighting mistake.

“No? Don’t tell me,” Hope leans across the library table. “You were sent here from the future.”

“Yes, a future where you did not do your homework and therefore failed out of university with one semester left to go,” she looks up at her friend who is twirling a pencil between her fingers, very much _not_ doing her work. “You’re so distraught over the embarrassment you turn to a life of crime.”

“Sounds interesting,” Hope muses, pursing her lips. “What kind of crime? Art theft? Bank robbery?”

“You sneak into libraries around the world and misshelve books. It’s very, very, _very_ annoying.”

“The scourge of the Dewey decimal system.”

“Yes,” Josie goes back to her notebook.

“I am the thing that goes bump in the stacks.”

“Yes.”

When that’s all Josie says, Hope sighs and opens up her own book. Josie grins down at her papers, victorious.

xx

They’re picking up their workspace a few hours later when Josie decides to answer Hope’s question from earlier.

“It’s short for Josette,” she says, zipping up her backpack.

Across the table, Hope stops what she’s doing. “Josette,” she says like she’s trying it out, weighing it on her tongue.

Josie chooses to focus on putting on her backpack, not the soft smile on Hope’s face as she stares into the middle distance.

“I like that,” Hope says. “Is it a family name?”

“Yes.” 

And then, as they walk through the shelves and the lobby and step out into the turning-brisk air, Josie tells Hope the abridged version of her family. 

“Wow,” Hope says when Josie comes to a stop on the sidewalk outside. She has another class and Hope’s done for the day so this is where they part.

“Yeah, it’s a little wild,” Josie laughs a bit uncomfortably because honestly, it _is_. Her bio mom dying of cancer and her bio mom's sister stepping in and being a surrogate for her embryos and then platonically raising the girls alongside Josie’s dad is just… It sounds like the plot of some horrible Lifetime Movie. The only difference being there’s thankfully no deranged serial killer in Josie’s story — Lifetime really seems to be obsessed with those. 

“Wild, yeah.” Hope agrees. “But also… Beautiful in a way. Like. Your dad wanted y’all so much, he jumped through all of these hoops just to have you. That’s…” she looks up at the clouds rolling through the sky. “That’s really special.”

Josie’s never really thought of it that way before. Of course, she knows her dad and Caroline love her and Lizzie. But, when she thinks of the events leading to her and Lizzie’s birth, she’s always kind of focused on how much her dad must have loved her biomom. 

Hope looks at her watch and shoves her in the direction of the English building. “Alright, _Josette_ , you’d better get going. You have class in like three and a half minutes.”

xx

Given Hope’s previously expressed distaste of parties, Josie is understandably surprised when, a few weeks into their friendship, she agrees to the invite Josie extends to her.

“Wait. Really?”

Hope stops what she’s doing (meticulously cleaning her paintbrushes). “Yes…?”

“No,” Josie says, placing her hand on Hope’s elbow and smiling to assuage the shorter girl’s uncertain tone. “I just. I thought you said you didn’t like parties. I just don’t want you to feel pressured into coming if you don’t want to.”

Hope snorts. “Josie, you are like the least pushy person I’ve met. Besides, Landon and his roommate are having some annual boys campout this weekend and he’s been after me to find something to do with my weekend other than playing hermit.”

“Okay. Okay, awesome,” Josie squeals. “So, wanna meet at my place tomorrow night? Lizzie usually likes to get there sometime after ten.”

“At _night_?”

Josie rolls her eyes. “Yes, at night, grandma. It’s a frat party, not Sunday brunch.”

Hope appraises Josie who is now smiling a little manically. “What the hell did I just agree to?” 

“Looks like you’ll just have to come with to find out!” Josie singsongs. 

xx

Hope shows up at Josie and Lizzie’s apartment at exactly ten o’clock the next night. Josie opens the door and almost falls over. Her friend is wearing dark jeans, dark boots, dark makeup, and most distractingly, a dark top that could only really be described as a bustier. 

“Woah,” Josie says. She knows she’s staring, doing a remarkable deer in the headlights impression, but really, “woah.”

Josie’s not exactly a conservative dresser (she’s wearing a cropped sweater with a high waisted skirt that she knows makes her legs look amazing), but. Still. Hope’s look feels like a direct attack on her wlw sensibilities.

“You said that already,” Hope laughs. “Not good?” She says looking down self-consciously.

Lizzie takes this moment to stick her head in from where she and MG are mixing pre-game drinks. “Josie, we all know Hope is smokin’ like a pre-cigarette-ban diner. Stop drooling and come take these shots so we can _go_.” 

Josie momentarily debates the merits of smacking her face with the front door before remembering herself and her manners and finally inviting her friend in off the welcome mat. “While it was considerably more aggressive than what I was thinking, Lizzie’s right,” Josie laughs, hoping to sweep the ‘drooling’ callout under the rug. 

“I always am,” her sister calls from the kitchen.

Josie rolls her eyes then turns back to her friend. She knows she should just leave it be, but it’s like her brain can’t pass up the opportunity to compliment the other girl. “You look...” 

“‘Woah’?” Hope suggests smirking in the dark of the entryway.

Josie laughs to cover the effect Hope’s self-satisfied look is having on her. “Yeah,” she says lamely. She wants to kick herself for how awkward she’s randomly become. Hope’s presence apparently triggering a regression back to ninth-grade, first-first-date Josie. Lovely.

“You too,” Hope says, that damn smirk still in place as she looks Josie over despite the fact that Josie is still being a total doofus.

Josie knows she’s blushing, but she prays with all her might that it’s too dark in the hallway for Hope to see it. When her eyes meet Josie’s again, Josie decides she should have listened to Hope that first time when she said parties weren’t her thing. Maybe she shouldn’t have invited her friend tonight... 

Hope, thankfully saves Josie from herself by saying, “Now, let’s go do those shots before Lizzie does them for us,” and turning Josie towards the kitchen. 

Josie laughs, thankful whatever spell had been brewing between the two of them seems to have been broken and raises her eyebrows. “For a grandma, you sure are excited to get the party started.”

“The faster we get going, the faster we can get _home_.”

“Good thing I got us Red Bulls,” Josie grins, dragging Hope to the fridge.

xx

“I thought you said Hope had a boyfriend,” Lizzie says an hour and a half later, while she and Josie refresh their drinks.

They’re at some frat house that Josie finds just vaguely familiar enough she can’t be certain whether she’s been here before, or just another house that looks like it. They’ve been to so many parties over the years, they all blend together, honestly. What’s another poorly decorated living room when the main source of light is a _strobe_ light?

As a member of the football team, MG pretty much gets invited to everything. Just another reason Lizzie keeps MG around. At least that’s what Lizzie said earlier before laying the grossest, sappiest kiss on the boy, heedless of Josie and Hope sitting right there in the backseat.

“She does…” Josie answers, confused at her sister’s suspicious tone and narrowed eyes.

“Then why has she been all over you all night?”

Josie blushes despite herself, suddenly worried the girl in question will appear and hear this highly uncomfortable conversation. “She has not,” she says indignantly.

“Dude,” Lizzie gives her a look like she just denied climate change. “Earth to planet Disillusioned Pansexual, yes she has.”

“No. She has _not_. She’s just touchy-feely. That’s just how she is.”

Well, Josie thinks. That’s how Hope is with _her_ at least. She hasn’t really seen Hope with a lot of other girls. Or people in general, except the few times she’s run into Hope with Landon. But, she knows better than to read into a straight girl’s friendly flirtations. She’s not that disillusioned, no matter what Lizzie might say.

Josie may have had some ill-advised trysts in her past, but she knows better than to fall for a girl who isn’t available. Let alone one who has shown zero hints at being attracted to other girls. She’s smarter than that. 

And truthfully, she thinks indignantly, the alcohol feeding her umbrage, the stereotype of queer girls falling for every girl they meet who shows them an ounce of attention is offensive and just plain dumb. If anything, being pan means she has _higher_ standards. How else do you weed through a dating pool two times the average size? You can be inclusive, while still being picky, damnit. 

She realizes at some point, her monologuing must have switched from mental to verbal, because Lizzie’s just raising her eyebrows and saying, “Uh-huh, sure, whatever you say,” dismissively before wandering away to find MG.

Josie grabs the drinks and leaves, determined to ignore her sister’s dumb accusations, and enjoy the rest of her night. 

Josie finds Hope in the next room, deep in a conversation with a guy who looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie magazine. Josie’s just debating whether or not to interrupt when Hope looks up and smiles at her, eyes crinkling adorably as she reaches out a hand to beckon her over. 

“Josie, Jed. Jed, Josie,” Hope introduces, taking the offered solo cup and then immediately launching back into what appears to be a debate on the merits of recycling. 

Or at least, that’s what it sounds like they’re talking about. Josie tries to follow along, really, she does. 

But. 

As soon as Josie stepped up next to Hope, Hope had reached out and placed a hand on her lower back. There’s a variety of reasons Hope probably did this. The room they’re standing in is crowded. Hope could have been making space for Josie to feel included in the conversation. She could be keeping Josie close as the other party-goers jostle around them. She could just be trying to ground herself amidst all the alcohol and noise. 

It could easily be any of those things that caused Hope to rest her warm hand on the equally warm skin of Josie’s back, fitting perfectly in the space between where Josie’s crop top ends and her skirt begins like it was meant to be there like the fashion gods had this very scenario in mind when they designed these two articles of clothing.

What it is _not_ , however, is a possessive display of ownership. Josie spends the rest of the party trying to strangle the part of her brain insisting it is. 

Hope and this Jed guy could be discussing secretly being werewolves or superheroes right in front of her right now and Josie would have zero idea. Hope’s one single hand is that distracting. Josie doesn’t even want to think about what both hands on her skin would be like. _A lot_ , probably.

Hope laughs at something Jed says and instinctively pulls Josie closer, their sides bumping, then pressing together. Josie distracts herself by swallowing half of her drink.

Fucking Lizzie and her fucking nosy questions. 

xx

“You’re really good at this,” Josie says as Hope paints another coat of polish on her fingernails. 

The color, a vivid purple-pink, is a little brighter than something Hope would ever wear. Josie had been surprised to see it amidst the rest of Hope’s deeper jewel-toned polishes. But then, Hope had flipped the bottle over and showed her the name: Magenta Me Crazy. According to Hope, some puns are just too good to pass up.

Hope snorts, but doesn’t shake the brush. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed the gigantic easel in the corner of my bedroom, but I do kind of like to paint.”

“Oh, you mean that isn’t just a prop you bought at Urban Outfitters to add a hipster flare?” Josie asks.

“Do not think for a second that I am above painting this magenta onto your face, Saltzman.”

Josie holds her other, drying hand up in surrender. “So,” she says after another moment of watching Hope carefully apply the polish to her ring finger and run her own nail along the cuticles to remove any excess paint from the area. “Did your mom teach you how to do this?”

Josie might not have seen it, if she and Hope weren’t so close, both bent over Josie’s hand. For just a second, Hope’s jaw tightens, the muscle jumping quick and firm before smoothing back down. “Yes,” she says in a carefully neutral tone. “And no.”

“Oh.” Josie wonders if this is what it feels like to step into a minefield.

“It’s a long story,” Hope says as she finishes Josie’s pinkie and holds her hand out to inspect her work. She blows on it before carefully laying it flat on her kitchen table beside Josie’s other one. 

“I’ve got time.”

Hope takes special care twisting the top back on the bottle. She doesn’t look up from what she’s doing as she says, “My mom and I used to paint each other’s nails every Saturday morning.”

When Hope looks up, her eyes are deeper than Josie remembers seeing them before.

“Even when I was little and would make such a mess. She’d paint mine and then let me paint hers.” Hope smiles, a million miles away in her memories. “I’d get paint everywhere, of course, but she would never complain. She’d just laugh right along with me. And then, after I’d finish, she’d hold her hands out and, like, flaunt them? You know? Like she was showing off the world’s best manicure.”

Josie smiles at the image of a tiny Hope with her mom, inordinately pleased with her work. “That’s really cute.”

“Yeah,” Hope agrees. “When I was really young, back before- _before_. We’d run into my dad’s study once we finished and we’d show off our nails to him. It was the only time I ever went in there. He would ooh and awe and make a big deal over them, tell us how talented we were and how beautiful they looked. Mine, of course, would be perfect,” she laughs a little. 

“And Mom’s… Well, Mom’s would usually look like she’d fought off a rabid bottle of nail polish. But I remember,” Hope pauses. “I remember my dad would always hold her hands like they were the most precious thing he’d ever seen. Terrible paint job and all.”

Hope’s brow is furrowed as she trails off. Almost like she’s confused by the memory. Josie’s never wanted to reach out and touch her friend more. She keeps her hands glued to the table, though. As much as she wants to wipe the frown off Hope’s face, she wants even more to not interrupt Hope’s reminiscing.

After a moment, Hope says, “I haven’t thought of that in a long time.” She looks at Josie. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that story, before.”

Josie meets her gaze steadily and waits. She holds her tongue. She can tell there’s more from the way Hope’s chewing in her bottom lip.

“They died in a car crash when I was in 8th grade,” Hope says finally, voice just modulated enough for Josie to know the other girl has practiced saying that line as neutrally, as factually as possible. “My aunt took me in after that. She helped me hone my skills into the very impressive abilities you see before you today.”

Just delivering a piece of information. Nothing to see here, keep moving, don’t look too close, is what her tone suggests. Josie knows the tone well. She’s used it hundreds of times. Josie knows what can lurk under the surface of that tone.

Josie doesn’t think twice. She reaches out and pulls the other girl into a tight hug, wet nails be damned. She knows she made the right choice when Hope tucks her face into Josie’s shoulder and clutches her just as tightly.

xx 

Later, after Hope’s fixed Josie’s nails and gotten the polish out of their hair, they’re sitting on Hope’s balcony watching the sunset and drinking her aunt’s wife’s sweet tea recipe. Who’s would really probably just also be her aunt, Hope supposes.

Josie, who is of course too distracted by the way the sunlight is turning Hope’s auburn hair almost red, just hums noncommittally. She’d probably agree with anything Hope said right now. In this light, she looks so… Well, so not how friends should be allowed to look, Josie thinks. 

Hope is telling Josie about one Thanksgiving when Keelin, her aunt’s-wife-slash-just-also-aunt, dumped half a bag of sugar in the jug of tea on accident. 

“It was disgusting, Josie. I was fourteen and sixty percent of my diet consisted of processed sugar and I still couldn’t drink it. Keelin was so embarrassed and felt horrible, and just as she stands up from the table to go dump it all out, Freya, Freya fucking grabs her glass and just drinks the whole fucking thing.” 

Hope is nearly in tears, laughing as she recounts the scene. Her words trip out over the top of each other in her happiness, so unlike her usual, measured speech. Everything about her in this moment is free and unguarded. 

“As soon as she set the glass back down on the table she had to run to the bathroom to throw up. She spent the rest of Thanksgiving dinner laying down with a headache,” Hope says shaking her head fondly. “And do you want to know what she said to me after?”

“What?” 

“‘Hope, honey, I pray one day you marry someone who thinks you’re sweet enough just the way you are and who doesn’t try to poison you with half a bag of sugar.’”

“Oh my god. What did Keelin say to that?”

“Nothing at first. She just stormed out of the kitchen where she’d been putting up the leftovers, marched straight up to the couch Freya was laying on and dumped the rest of the bag of sugar right on her, right there on the couch.”

“What?!” Josie shrieks out laughing.

“Yep. And afterward, she said ‘clearly I should have used the full bag of sugar because you’re still salty.’” 

Josie would be laughing harder if her heart wasn’t so busy seizing up in her chest at the sight of Hope tilting her head back, laughing and laughing. 

Yeah. It would really, truly be better for everyone if friends were not allowed to look like that.

xx

A few nights later, they’re stumbling home from the student bar’s trivia night. Josie would be concerned with just how often they find themselves in this position (drunk), but then again it is college. 

Plus, it’s hard to be too concerned about things when Hope’s got her arm around Josie’s shoulders and Josie’s arm around Hope’s waist in a bid to stay vertical on the short walk to Hope’s apartment.

“God, I am so fucking glad we’re friends,” Josie giggles as they balance against Hope’s door while Hope fumbles the keys into the lock.

“Awwwww, Jooooo,” the shorter girl beams, keys forgotten in the door as she turns to sloppily hug Josie. “I am too.”

“Yeah,” Josie laughs. “Otherwise I’d have another five blocks to walk home.”

Hope leans back and smacks Josie’s shoulder. “So you’re just using me for my convenient apartment,” she accuses. Josie finds the pout her friend is giving her way too cute.

“Doesn’t matter how convenient your apartment is, if you don’t let us inside it, ya drunk dork.” 

She leans around Hope to try to finish unlocking the door, but Hope moves to block her or grab her hand or something, Josie isn’t really sure, because her reaction time is pretty impaired and it’s dark. Hope’s usually pretty graceful, but they’re both inebriated and the sudden movement catches Josie off guard so they all but trip and slam into the door a laughing tangle of limbs.

It’s only by the grace of God Josie is able to jerk her head back enough to keep from face planting into the hardwood of Hope’s door. 

“You’re a menace,” Josie groans, resting her forehead against the door over Hope’s shoulder. Hope is laughing beneath her where she’s pressed between Josie and her front door. 

“I am not!” Hope squeals, smacking at Josie again. “Take it back,” she demands, wraps her arms around Josie in another tight hug like she’s trying to squeeze it out of her.

Josie pulls back enough to look Hope in the face. “Which part?”

Hope squeezes again. “All of it.”

“My friendship, too?”

“Nooooo,” Hope moans, sagging against the other girl. “Not that,” she leans her head back against the door, momentarily distracting Josie with the long column of her throat, before she says, “Never that, Jo.”

Hope breathes out the last bit so low and quiet Josie isn’t sure if it’s meant for her ears at all. The moment between them quiets, stretches, reshapes into something far different than the carefree horseplay nonsense between two drunk best friends.

Because Josie is apparently a masochist, she’s wearing another crop top. She’s really beginning to regret this style choice of hers. Sure they’re cute, but at what cost when Hope’s arms are wrapped loosely around Josie’s waist, her hands pressing surely into the skin of Josie’s back. Josie can feel the cool metal of her rings against her spine. Hope’s leaning back against the door, the angle pressing their hips tight together in a way that Josie’s only experienced with people she’s about thirty to ninety seconds from hooking up with. 

Josie notices all of these things in very quick, highly specific detail, in the way that one does as they sober up to a gigantic mistake narrowly veering past them, almost hitting them. Like getting jerked back from a curb as a car comes speeding through a crosswalk. 

They’re drunk. Hope has a boyfriend. Hope is just her friend. But most importantly: Hope has a _boyfriend_. 

This is just what being friends with Hope is like, Josie reminds herself as she feels one of Hope’s pinkies begin to trace a pattern on her back. Hope touches you and looks at you and smiles at you and it doesn’t mean anything other than friendship. 

Josie should not be thinking like this when it’s obvious it means none of the things her libido seems to think it does. Regardless of how hooded Hope’s gaze has gone. It’s just late and Hope’s drunk and probably tired and she is most definitely not thinking about what it would be like if they kissed right now.

“I take it back,” Josie says, swallowing down the fist-sized chunk of want that had been lodged in her throat, making it hard to breathe. “Walking another five blocks wouldn’t have been so bad.”

It works. The joke breaks whatever tension they may or may not have just been experiencing as Hope rolls her eyes and releases Josie, going back to open the door. “You're the fucking worst, Saltzman,” she says as they finally finally make it inside.

“Yeah,” Josie says softly. She thinks about what just happened. How fast her heart is racing, how hot her skin feels, the tight coil of desire low in her belly all because her _fucking friend_ was standing a little too close. “I know.”

xx

Josie needs to get laid.

She woke up this morning to a hungover Hope sprawled half across her, half off the bed. Hope had groaned in displeasure, squirming into her pillow and consequently further into Josie. The feel of their bare legs sliding together under the sheets was enough to start Josie’s stomach twisting. And then her stomach was just sick-twisting because shit they drank a lot of tequila last night.

Thankfully, it had been relatively easy to pull away from Hope’s warm, strictly platonic cuddling, and excuse herself back to her own apartment. 

Jesus, Josie needs to get laid. Or go on a date. Or both. Preferably both, Josie thinks. (She is a _lady_ , after all.) She needs to do _something_ , is the point. 

She hasn’t hooked up with anyone since before the start of the semester. Usually, she wouldn’t be worried about that, but if what happened last night and this morning is anything to go by, her hormones clearly are. Why else would she be getting hot for Hope, her wonderful, funny, very beautiful, but also probably straight, most definitely taken friend? 

Josie shakes her head and hides it under a pillow. It’s like her mind is actively working against her, damnit. 

She blindly reaches for her phone, not bothering to remove the pillow from her face until she’s got it in her hand. There’s a text from Hope (a picture of an empty coffee mug with the message ‘this reminded me of you’) which she ignores in favor of opening the dating app she hasn’t been on since summer when she was home. 

She’d met Jade, that go-round. Jade had been the perfect casual summer fling. Also home for the summer, Jade had been looking for the same thing as Josie. It was the ideal situation: no strings, no pesky feelings, just Jade, and this thing she could do with her tongue that made Josie’s brain fizzle to static. Josie needs something like that again, asap. 

She takes a second to update her profile pictures and then she’s off, perusing through eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in her surrounding area. She’d dithered for a moment before starting her search, debating if she even wanted to look for a girl right now, or if that might just be too much for her already hormone-addled brain. 

The last thing Josie wants is to run the risk of accidentally calling some poor girl the wrong name when they’re caught up in the middle of something. How mortifying that would be for all parties involved.

She swipes through a couple of people before landing on a guy in one of her Spanish Lit classes. Raf is his name. He’s tall from what Josie remembers. Got a nice smile. And is apparently action-hero-ripped if this shirtless picture of him at the beach with some buddies is anything to go by. Josie feels her eyes go wide like saucers as she tries to count his abs on the tiny screen of her phone. 

He’s perfect. Josie swipes right then goes through another few people, nixing and yesing at whim, before her app alerts her that Raf has swiped right on her too.

They chat about class for a bit and then Raf invites her to coffee after their next class. Josie accepts and then burrows back under the covers. Her stomach is back to twisting and this time Josie doesn’t know if it’s from the lingering nausea, nerves about her date with Raf the next night, or some other unnameable thing.

Josie rolls over and groans into her pillow. She really hates feelings.

xx

The date is… well, it’s not good.

Raf is a perfect gentleman. He’s just as soft-spoken as he is in class but funnier. Josie’s always secretly kind of amazed when people who are as nice to look at as he is also bother to develop a nice personality. 

Kind of like Hope, Josie thinks.

And that right there is exactly why it’s a disaster. 

Raf automatically slows his long-legged pace down so they can comfortably walk to the coffee shop together. Raf opens the door for her and Raf pays for her coffee. Raf listens to her complain about the reading their professor assigned last week and laughs at her dumb jokes. And at the end of the date, after he has walked her back to where she parked her car, Raf asks her if he can kiss her. 

And after all of that, as he’s leaning down to give her the kiss she just agreed to, Josie’s dumb dumb brain flashes a picture bright and large across the inside of he mind of Hope leaning against her door two nights ago. Josie closes her eyes, prays to every god she’s ever read mention of in any of her literature classes to please make it stop, and kisses him.

xx 

That night, in a rare turn of events, Josie is at her own apartment. Landon and Hope have a date, and though Hope offered to text Josie when she was back home, saying she could still come over after, Josie declined the invitation. 

She has a final paper due tomorrow. She should be re-reading her final draft and checking for errors. This professor is notorious for formatting deductions. Instead, she and Lizzie are having a sister night. Romcoms, popcorn, boy talk.

“So tell me,” Lizzie says as a freshly thirty-year-old Jennifer Garner runs down a New York City street in her nighty. “How are things going with tall, dark, and well-read?”

“They’re… fine.”

“Fine as in ‘he’s so _fine_ you want to keep all the details to yourself because you’re worried MG will get jealous?’ Or fine as in that dog wearing a hat sitting in a room surrounded by flames?”

“Somewhere in the middle.”

“I see.” 

“Don’t start, Lizzie,” Josie sighs.

“I’m not starting anything,” Lizzie says in that very particular smarmy tone that siblings and siblings alone can master. “I just think you have unrealistic expectations.”

“Lizzie.”

“I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone to love like MG and I love each other. What’s wrong with that?”

“Lizzie, not everyone falls in love with their best friend and magically has their best friend reciprocate! You guys are like… the one-in-a-million winning lottery ticket kind of love. It’s unreasonable to expect something like that!” Josie says, voice rising as she lets her emotions get the better of her.

Lizzie places a hand on Josie’s. “There are lottery winners every day, Josie. Don’t count yourself out from being one of them. That’s all I’m saying.”

Josie tries not to think about how badly she wishes that were true.

xx

Josie isn’t naive. 

She knows people assume she is because of the way she looks and the way she acts, but she can’t help the fact she was born with “resting pouty face” as Lizzie calls it, and kindness _isn’t_ a weakness, she’s not crazy for choosing to pay it forward, people really _should_ be kinder to one another regardless of what they can get out of it. So. In spite of evidence to the contrary, Josie isn’t naive. 

She knows there’s no such thing as love at first sight. But she does believe in such a thing as an instant connection. A spark. When she’s looking for a romantic partner, such a spark isn’t necessary, but it is nice. She isn’t naive, but she is a romantic and she does want that. 

I mean, she felt a fucking spark when she met Hope and Hope is her _friend_. Is it really so crazy to want the same in a romantic, sexual partner? 

In the spirit of fairness, Josie gives Raf a few dates to let one such connection develop. And she does feel _something_ for him. It just turns out it’s more of a friend-type something. 

So, Josie cuts it off, kindly of course, and Raf is, of course, heartbreakingly nice about the whole thing. It’s not even awkward in class, despite the fact the class is tiny and only made up of like five other students.

Josie hates her hormones all over. Why, oh why, couldn’t she fall for _this_ person? Of all the people she’s met, why did her heart slash hormones have to pick the one person she decidedly should not?

xx

Lizzie, Josie, MG, Hope, and Landon are sprawled in the living room of Josie and Lizzie’s apartment studying for their last finals. 

Lizzie, who has all the tact of an elephant on roller skates, abruptly breaks the silence to ask, “So, Josie, why don’t you invite Raf over to study with us?”

Josie almost breaks her pencil in surprise. She would murder her twin, prison sentence be damned.

“Raf?” Hope asks, clearly confused, eyes skipping between Josie and Lizzie.

“Josie’s new boo thing,” MG supplies cheerily from beside Lizzie.

Josie would murder him as well. What’re two convictions when you’re already getting life?

Landon chooses that moment to look up from his textbook to join the conversation, “New boo thing?” He repeats grinning, “Nice! Maybe we can all go on a _triple_ date!”

Actually, scrap all the other plans, Josie just might murder herself. Much quicker. Plus then she wouldn’t have to take her Nietzche and the Profane seminar final. She’s stared into the abyss long enough. It can have her, as long as it takes her right this very second. 

“Wait, did you say Raf?” Landon says thoughtfully. “Like Rafael Waithe Raf?”

“I think so, yeah...” Josie cautiously speaks for the first time since this whole horrible conversation started.

“As in Landon’s roommate?” Hope asks, astonished. “You’re dating Landon’s roommate?”

Josie is about to say, no, she’s not dating _anyone_ anymore actually, but Lizzie interrupts as per usual. 

“He’s your roommate?!” She crows from the couch, looking way too pleased with this turn of events. “No offense, Landon, but Hope how could you have picked Landon over _that_ guy?”

“I don’t know how that _wasn’t_ an offense…” Landon grumbles quietly. 

Lizzie responds naturally with a flippant “don’t be so sensitive.”

Hope’s still looking at Josie with an unreadable expression and Josie really wishes none of this ever started to begin with. Hope excuses herself a moment later to get more coffee from the kitchen and Josie waits all of three milliseconds to follow her.

“Hope?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hope asks, facing the coffee pot resolutely. She’s put her mug down, though, and is leaning on her hands on the counter. 

The sight of her bowed head makes something clench, cold and dreadful, in Josie’s gut. “Oh. Uh,” she wrings her hands. 

Before she can say anything else, Hope turns around and that same unreadable look is in her eyes. Hope crosses her arms and leans back against the counter. Josie doesn’t think she’s ever seen her so closed off. Not with her, at least. Not looking at Josie. 

“I mean,” Hope clears her throat. “I would have hooked you guys up sooner had I known you were interested in him.”

“I, um, I didn’t. Know that I was interested, that is. We have a class together and—“ Josie doesn’t really know why she feels the need to explain this to Hope, but she does, desperately. Maybe then Hope would stop looking at her like...well, like this.

Hope sucks in a breath. “Well, I’m happy for you. Raf’s a really great guy. I just...”

Josie furrows her brow as the shorter girl trails off. “You just what?” 

“Nothing. I just thought you would have told me, is all.”

“Oh,” Josie inexplicably feels let down at that answer. “Well, there isn’t much to tell. We went out a couple of times, but now we’re not anymore.”

“Why not?” Hope’s posture changes then. She clenches her jaw and her eyes, her eyes turn dark and dangerous. Her voice is hard when she asks, “Did he do something? Was he rude?” 

“No, no, no,” Josie is quick to assuage her friend’s concerns. “No. You said it yourself — Raf is a really great guy. He wasn’t the problem. I was.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Hope scoffs. “You’re like perfect. What could be the problem?”

Josie tries and fails not to blush at that. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and clears her throat of the sudden emotion building up, “No, I mean… I just wasn’t feeling it. So we decided to stay just classmates or whatever. No harm, no foul. Honest.”

Hope eyes her critically for another moment, her jaw working like she’s physically chewing the information over. “Okay,” she says finally, uncrossing her arms, softening her posture to one that Josie’s more familiar with.

Josie sucks in a breath that tastes like relief. 

xx

She’s in her last Literature and Language through the Ages class of the year and the teacher is having one of her classmates read Yeats’ The Second Coming aloud. No doubt the professor's idea of a forbidding allusion to finals. What better way to scare your students into studying than with some doomsday imagery?

Josie’s heard the poem before, though. She did a paper on it in her freshman year poetry class, but this time… this time it hits a little different. 

Her classmate finishes and her teacher begins to talk about Yeats’ involvement with Aleister Crowley’s sex cult, Thelema, but Josie is still stuck on the phrase “the centre cannot hold.”

She looks at the poem written on the page in front of her.

_‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer’..._

_‘Surely some revelation is at hand’..._

She thinks of Hope. More specifically, she thinks of these feelings for Hope that just keep growing and growing, despite Josie’s best efforts. 

This is the problem with poetry, Josie has found. It’s always making you think of other things. Like each line is a springboard to some idea or personal experience. It’s great when doing analyses. The comparisons just leap off the page; you’re meeting your word count before you even know it. 

The last thing Josie wants to do, though, is analyze her relationship with Hope.

Sure, Yeats was a lunatic obsessed with ejaculation and the coming apocalypse, but… Josie can’t quite shake the concern for what rough beast may be slouching towards her and Hope’s friendship. 

xx

They’re at the grocery store, picking up party supplies when the revelation appears. Exams have wrapped up and the football season has ended. So naturally, Lizzie talks Josie into throwing a party.

Lizzie is supposed to be at the store with Josie right now since they are the ones hosting said party, but when Josie had called Lizzie earlier to find out where she was so they could go, Lizzie had sent her straight to voicemail. Before Josie could even call back a second time, Lizzie had sent a quick, typo-filled text saying she and MG were _busy_ , could Josie just go to the store on her own ‘pls.’ 

The number of winking emojis and other assorted fruit and vegetables that were included left no room for the imagination. 

“Disgusting,” Josie had said upon reading it. 

Hope barely looked up from her painting. “What?”

“Look at this message Lizzie just sent.”

Hope leaned over, careful to keep her brush and palette away from Josie’s hair as she held the screen up for her to read. She snorted, “Honestly, I’m surprised she was able to find the eggplant and peach when she couldn’t even be bothered to spell ‘sorry’ right.”

“She is a woman of many talents, my sister.”

“Sounds like MG would agree,” Josie raised the pillow she was leaning against and made to whack Hope. “Hey! Wet paint over here! No projectiles, please.”

“‘No projectiles,’” Josie mimicked, settling back on Hope’s bed. 

“Well I was going to offer to go to the store with you, but if you’re gonna be a jerk…”

Josie sat back up. “No, no, pleeeease come with me,” she whined.

“Hmm… I don’t know…” Hope hedged.

Josie clasped her hands in front of her chin and gave her biggest, best puppy dog eyes.

“Ugh, okay, fine. You know I can’t say no to that face,” Hope groaned before turning back to her painting as Josie squealed and hopped off the bed. “Just give me a second to finish this little portion and then we can go.”

“Perfect, I’ll make a list.”

So that’s how, thirty minutes later, Josie finds herself trawling the grocery aisles with Hope, a basket between them, a list of party necessities in Josie’s hand, and a smudge of missed paint on Hope’s neck. Hope must have missed it as she was cleaning up, but Josie has no idea how that’s possible when it’s the only thing _she_ can focus on. Which is a problem considering she has the list. 

In an effort to distract herself from staring at her friend’s neck like a girl version of Edward Cullen, Josie ducks behind a sunglasses display case while Hope peruses the chips. She grabs the first three sunglasses she can get her hands on and shoves them all on her face, one stacked atop the other going from her nose all the way up her forehead.

“What do you think?” Josie asks Hope, deadpan.

Hope turns around, no doubt expecting Josie to be asking her opinion on dips, and bursts out laughing.

“Nice, right?”

Hope is still bent over laughing when she says, “You’re my favorite person. You know that?”

Josie cracks a smile as Hope finally straightens and wipes tears from her face. “You mean aside from Landon?”

“No,” Hope grins, adjusting the topmost pair so they lay a little more securely on top of Josie’s head. “You’re my favorite person. Full stop.”

“Oh.” Josie has to look down her feet because she’s certain the ice beneath them just cracked. “You’re my favorite person too.”

“Good,” Hope says, smiling that wide, sunrise smile Josie’s gone a little silly over this last semester. The smile Hope seems to reserve especially for Josie. And Landon.

The ice has definitely cracked now. Josie can feel it as she looks at Hope in the harsh white overhead light of the snack aisle. Hope looks at her, eyes crinkled and so fond, and Josie feels the icy cold water rush up around her body. 

She is so beyond fucked.

Hope, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to notice as she turns back towards the basket and grabs the little list of supplies from where Josie dropped it. “Now, let’s get the rest of this stuff and go home! There’s a new episode recorded of that horrible vampire show you like and if we hurry we can watch it before the party.”

Yeah. Well and truly beyond fucked.

xx

The party is an undeniable success. Granted, they could have dropped a case of beer in the alley behind the campus pak-n-post and it would have been just as big of a hit. College kids really are suckers for an excuse to drink. 

But still. 

Landon and Raf bring their beer pong table and everyone else brings their favorite alcohol and mixer. It’s beautiful out, too, just the right side of winter cool. So they leave the back door open that way people can spill out into the courtyard area out back if the apartment gets too crowded. 

It’s an even mix of Josie and Lizzie’s friends and some of MG’s athlete bros to round it out. Everyone seems to be getting along really well, actually. Even Kaleb and MG aren’t squabbling over the aux cord, having apparently made some sort of peaceable music treaty early in the night.

Lizzie’s even let go of her Perfect Hostess role and is actually enjoying herself, laughing as MG twirls her around the ‘dancefloor’ they’ve cleared in the living room. Their swing dancing moves are even funnier when paired with the Biggie playing from the speakers.

So, it’s great. It’s really great. Maybe the best party Josie and Lizzie have thrown, even. 

And yet. 

Josie finds herself leaving it all in favor of retreating alone to her room. She’s not hiding exactly, just taking a breather. 

Hope is wearing her hair down tonight. Earlier, after the grocery store run, Josie had helped Hope pick out her outfit. But now, a beer and a half in, Josie’s wishing she had picked literally anything other than the low cut shirt Hope is wearing. Maybe if she had been able to think of anything other than ‘boobs’ she would have thought that decision through a little better. But alas. She is a weak gay. Who is she to stand up to an amazing pair of breasts.

So really, she can’t very well blame Landon for being all over Hope. His girlfriend looks hot. Why shouldn’t he drape his arm over her shoulders as they stand talking to some of the football guys? Or pick her up and twirl her around, kissing her like some goddamned Nicholas Sparks scene, when he wins a game of beer pong. 

And it wouldn’t really even be so bad if only Hope would stop seeking Josie out every ten minutes. Josie could just avoid her best friend and her boyfriend and it would probably be fine. She could ignore her own selfish feelings and just enjoy the party. 

Except it’s like Hope is _actively_ trying to sabotage Josie’s plans. Which is crazy, of course, because Josie’s certain Hope has no idea she’s even doing it. It’s just Hope being Hope. Hope smiling that big dumb Sunshine Hope Smile at Josie when they make eye contact across the room. Hope reaching for Josie’s hand and pulling Josie closer to the conversation. Hope laughing into Josie’s neck when MG and Kaleb get into an increasingly silly dance battle. Hope driving Josie a little bit crazier with every occurrence. 

The worst part is that Josie knows this is nothing new. This is how Hope always acts around her, especially when there’s alcohol involved. Hope is usually pretty physically affectionate with Josie. Naturally, that just gets turned up to eleven when the drinks come out. She’s been drunk with Hope enough over the course of the last semester to expect that (revel in it, actually, if she’s being totally honest).

But tonight, it’s like her body or her mind, whichever, maybe both, has finally had enough. The dam is breaking and the thoughts Josie’s been busily shoving under are streaming out with a vengeance. 

Hope puts a hand on Josie’s arm and looks up at her through her eyelashes as she leans into her, ghosting a laugh across Josie’s collarbones as Kaleb does the robot and MG answers with the lawnmower and… This dark part of Josie’s brain twists the scene, produces a secondary one that’s no less vivid than reality. Hope’s hands are still on her, Hope is still leaning into her, watching her through her eyelashes as her breath ghosts across Josie’s skin. Except in this dark version, Hope doesn’t stop leaning in. Hope kisses her. Josie blinks hard.

The fact that it’s only slightly different is what has Josie all but jerking away from her friend. It’s so visceral, this image of Hope kissing her, it feels less like a daydream and more like a memory. Or a premonition.

So she flees to her bedroom. Several rooms and a door between her and her best friend. Because apparently that’s the only way she can be sure she won’t do something completely insane like crush their mouths together or worse, confess to… Well, confess to everything.

She doesn’t know how long she’s up there, laying on top of the covers with the lights off before the door cracks open and a head pokes into the darkness.

“Josie?” The silhouette asks quietly.

“Raf,” Josie sits up, surprised to find the boy peering at her uncertainly from around the door. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yes,” he shakes his head a little. Like he’s scolding himself for something. “Sorry. I was just coming to check on you. Make sure you weren’t sick or something.” He chuckles self-deprecatingly before apologizing again. “Sorry, that probably seems weird, I’ll uh, let you get back to…”

“Sitting in the dark being emo?” Josie offers ruefully.

Raf chuckles again, less self-deprecating, warmer this time. “Yeah. That,” he says easily. He doesn’t move from the doorway, though. He keeps one hand on the jamb, the other on the handle, careful to keep the door still mostly closed.

Josie sees it for what it is. He’s respecting her space. He didn’t just invite himself in, and from the way he’s holding his body back on the other side of the threshold isn’t expecting her to invite him in either. Her heart swells up and breaks all over again for this incredibly sweet boy who’s still a perfect gentleman even after half a case of beer. 

Why can’t she have feelings for him?

Stupid, stupid.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Raf says kindly after a quiet moment. 

He leans back to close the door when Josie stops him. “Do you wanna come be emo with me too?” She asks.

He pauses like he’s carefully weighing the danger of the situation. “Do I have to wear eyeliner?”

“Definitely,” Josie smiles. “Maybe some black nail polish, too.”

“Oh, shoot, why didn’t you say that first?” He slips into the room, carefully closing the door behind himself. 

He toes his shoes off and then lays down on the bed beside Josie. Josie notes that he manages to do it without touching her at all. Josie also notes that his feet hang off the end of the bed. Which is suddenly the funniest thing to her. She didn’t realize just how tall he was until this exact moment. 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he grouses goodnaturedly. “You just wait until you have to reach a book off the top shelf in the library. See if I help!”

“I think I’ve seen some step stools somewhere…”

“Yeah,” Raf scoffs. “Good luck carrying one of those all by yourself.”

It’s Josie’s turn to be indignant. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing at all, twig arms.”

“Wow, just for that, I’m going to make you apply your own eyeliner.”

“Did I say ‘twig arms’? I meant _Hulk_ arms.”

“Nope, too late. I’m taking my twigs and my makeup skills and going elsewhere. You’re on your own.”

They both laugh, then slip into a silence that Josie is surprised to find is quite comfortable. The thwump of the bass and occasional cheer can still be heard from the living room, and her head still feels like a treacherous minefield, but laying here quietly next to Raf, who isn’t quite her friend, isn’t quite her ex? It’s surprisingly nice. 

Josie never noticed it before, but Raf has a soothing energy about him. Hope always makes Josie feel a little like she’s dragged her socked feet across carpet - like there’s this excess energy buzzing all along her body, just thrumming in between her skin and her blood. Raf is like, whatever the opposite of that staticky feeling is. 

Josie wonders briefly if she were to reach out and touch him if it would be like touching a doorknob after you’ve built up too much static electricity. She squashes the thought, though, because one, that’s silly, and two, Raf doesn’t deserve that. 

There’s a time and a place and a person for meaningless hookups, and Josie already knows the boy respectfully laying next to her doesn’t fit that bill.

“So,” Raf says quietly after a while. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Josie swallows. “Not- not right now. But, thank you.”

Raf shrugs. “I mean, I know we don’t really know each other, but I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener. If you ever change your mind, that is.”

“Thanks, Raf,” Josie smiles into the dark. “I appreciate the offer.”

“Sure thing,” he says easily. 

And that’s that. They just lay in companionable silence for who knows how long until half-muffled voices in the hallway can be heard. 

“—would he be in there?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Hope,” comes Lizzie’s reply, closer to the door. “Why _would_ my single sister want to be alone in her room with a handsome, also single, hunk of a man such as Raf?”

Then MG can be heard saying, “I dunno, guys, maybe we should leave them to… whatever they’re doing.”

“Nonsense,” Lizzie says loudly, now obviously at the door.

Josie sits up at that. “Oh boy,” she has time to say before there is a _loud_ series of knocks at her door. 

“Yooooohoooo, Josieeeee,” Lizzie calls through the door. “Are you two _decent_ in there? Or should we give you a moment to put your clothes back on?”

Josie flops back onto her pillow groaning at just how embarrassing her sister is. She peaks at Raf through her fingers — thankfully he seems to be fighting back a laugh. “I am so sorry for,” she waves vaguely in the direction of the door, “her.”

There’s more knocking then, and Raf stops holding back his laughter. “No apology needed,” he says sitting up on his hands.

“It’s open, Lizzie, you can stop with the fucking knocking,” Josie yells to her sister.

“Oooh, unlocked, eh? Kinky,” Lizzie says before swinging open the door wide and flipping on the overhead lights.

“Fuck, Liz,” Josie grunts, hands shooting up to shade her eyes as she’s blinded by the sudden light. 

Through the spots in her vision she can still make out the disappointed pout on her sister’s face at finding both she and Raf completely clothed and decidedly not in flagrante delicto. 

Josie sits up and looks at the trio standing in her doorway. “Can we help you three stooges with something?” She raises her eyebrows pointedly at her sister who is no doubt the leader of this little posse.

Instead of Lizzie, though, it’s Hope who answers. “Landon’s drunk,” she says flatly. “He was wanting you to take him home, Raf, but…” she finally cuts her eyes over to Josie for the first time since the door opened. “You’re obviously busy.”

Raf, bless him, swings his long legs off the bed without a moment of hesitation. “No, it’s cool,” he says lightly before scooping his shoes up from the floor. 

From the mouth of the hallway, a very drunk Landon can be heard calling, “Raaaf! Buddy!” 

Raf chuckles. “Hey, buddy. I’m coming,” he calls to his friend before turning back to Josie who hasn’t moved from her bed. He shoots her a warm smile. “Let me know next time. I’ll bring the MCR.”

She finds herself returning the smile. “You got it.”

He salutes (that must be an Oregon thing, what is it with him and Landon and the saluting) and then he’s slipping past MG and Hope where they stand in the doorway. Josie can’t see anything past that, but she can hear him gently say something along the lines of “alright, Lando. Let’s get you home.”

“What does that even mean?” Lizzie asksJosie, eyebrow raised and looking a little maniacal. “What is ‘the MCR’ and why will Raf be _bringing_ it?”

Josie just shakes her head, amazed at how Lizzie can make anything sound like an innuendo. “My Chemical Romance,” Josie answers as she stands up, very aware that she doesn’t have to explain herself to Lizzie of all people. 

Lizzie who just about broke down her door on her and a boy. Yeah, she and Raf weren’t doing anything, but they could have been. That was the original plan with Raf several weeks ago. Never mind the dramatic u-turn her dumb as fuck heart demanded.

“Sounds-“ but thankfully before Lizzie can say what it sounds like, MG, beautiful, wonderful MG is pulling his girlfriend lightly out of Josie’s room. 

“Let's get you some water, babe,” he says with a solicitous smile, pivoting Lizzie back up the hallway towards the kitchen.

Now that she’s paying attention, Josie realizes the music has been turned off. The party must be over. She makes to walk past Hope, who is still standing stock-still in the doorway. 

Before Josie can slip past and survey the damage in the other rooms, maybe tackle the most pressing cleanup needs, Hope grabs her arm. “What does My Chemical Romance have to do with anything?”

“It’s…” Josie looks at the ceiling. “It’s a long, emo story.”

“One that Raf can know, but I can’t.”

“Hope,” Josie sighs.

She can’t tell how much of the glassy shine of Hope’s eyes is from alcohol and how much is from this unreadable emotion that’s turned Hope’s usually open face into a mask. When Josie turns to look at Hope, her friend looks shuttered, closed off. 

Hope’s eyes are still locked on Josie’s bed when she says, “I thought you said there was nothing going on between the two of you.”

“There isn’t,” Josie responds just as flatly.

The chuckle Hope snorts out is hollow with a razor edge; she wields it like a broken bottle as she cuts her eyes to Josie. “Didn’t exactly look like nothing.”

And damnit if Hope’s accusatory tone doesn’t set Josie’s teeth to grinding. Josie’s felt on edge for the last few days, too many unbalanced feelings slinging around inside of her like an overstuffed washing machine. Hope’s tone is the kick that settles everything into one recognizable emotion: anger. 

How dare Hope come in here and act like this to Josie. The only reason Josie was even in here to begin with was to get away from Hope and the way she makes Josie feel!

“I didn’t realize friends couldn’t lay in bed without it meaning something was going on,” Josie bites out, chin set, shoulders rigid. “Seems a little crazy for _you_ of all people to think that, Hope.”

Hope narrows her eyes. “That’s different.”

“How?” Josie presses. “ _How_ is it different?”

Hope looks at her hard. Josie returns the gaze as evenly as she can when she feels like she’s splintering apart at the seams. 

“It just is,” Hope finally answers through gritted teeth.

Now it’s Josie’s turn to laugh hollowly. She throws her arms up in the air. 

“Oh, okay. ‘It just is.’ Because that makes so much sense, Hope.” She turns to face the shorter girl fully. “Rafael is my friend, Hope. Just like _you_ are my friend. Christ, I sleep most nights at your place. But I lay next to Raf for two sec-”

“This isn’t about what you and I do, Josie,” Hope cuts across hotly, whipping around to face Josie head-on. “You two snuck off from a party to hang out in your room by yourself. What am I, what is anyone, supposed to think?”

“I don’t know, Hope,” Josie says just as hotly. “And honestly, I don’t really fucking care.”

“You don’t care,” Hope repeats. 

“Hope,” Josie says sternly. Because she is not going to let Hope twist her words into something that will hurt both of them. “Look, I- Argh! I don’t understand why you’re being like this.”

“I’m only _being_ like this because you’re not _being_ honest with me.”

“I am being honest with you!” Josie yells, beyond annoyed to be back at square one of this conversation.

“Not about this you aren’t!” Hope yells right back. 

“Fucking- Yes, I am!”

“I can tell when you’re hiding something, Josie. I can tell there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Just drop it, Hope.”

“No,” Hope says, lifting her chin. “What is it about him that means you can’t be honest with me?” Then, as if she suddenly remembers herself, she closes her eyes and sucks in a breath. Her voice is rough when she speaks again, “I thought we were best friends, Josie.”

It hits Josie like a swinging blow to the gut. This whole conversation has felt like a boxing match she’s been woefully unprepared for. Now, she’s seeing that maybe it’s been the same for Hope. 

Hope opens her eyes to look at Josie and she looks genuinely pained. Josie sucks in a breath at being the cause of it. “Hope,” Josie breathes, reaching out for her friend. “We are,” she assures. “We are.”

All of the anger evaporates and is replaced with remorse. It isn’t Hope’s fault Josie can’t keep her fucking emotions in check. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Hope. That was the whole reason why she came in here. This whole thing has just… spiraled so far out of control. None of this was what Josie wanted. 

Josie pulls the shorter girl into a hug. Hope thankfully returns it immediately, wrapping her arms around Josie’s waist and tucking her face into the crook of Josie’s neck. “I just-,” Hope swallows against Josie’s throat. “Look, if you like Raf, I just don’t know why you wouldn't tell me. I thought we told each other everything.”

Josie closes her eyes tight and fights back the sob that wants to rip from her throat. Damn Hope for being so close to the truth, but also, damn Hope for being so far from it. 

This is one thing Josie _can’t_ tell her, _won’t_ tell her. Hope loves _Landon_. Hope has already given so much of herself into this friendship with Josie and Josie _knows_ that. It would be selfish to tell her this. She already has so much of Hope. She’s not going to penalize the other girl for the fact that Josie’s greedy when it comes to her, that Josie wants more than Hope can give her.

So she bites her lip hard and then says as evenly as she can around the feeling of her heart breaking inside her chest, “I don’t like Raf, Hope. Not like that. I would tell you if I did. I promise.”

Hope makes a move like she wants to pull back from Josie to look her in the face, but Josie holds her fast. 

“Please,” Josie pleads. “Please just believe me.”

Hope sucks in a breath and is quiet for long enough that Josie’s certain she’s going to fight it, demand Josie stop hiding whatever it is she’s hiding from her, but then she’s nodding her head against Josie’s sweater. “Okay,” she says, sounding just as defeated as Josie feels. “Okay.”

Josie tucks her head in closer and hugs her just that much harder. Equal parts relieved and disappointed that Hope is letting her keep this thing from her. 

They’re broken from their hug by Hope’s phone vibrating loudly and persistently in her back pocket. She pulls back apologetically and grabs it. It’s Raf. 

“Hey,” Hope answers coolly. Then her face changes at whatever Raf says on the other end. “Yeah. Yeah. Shit, okay, yeah. I’ll be right there,” Hope says into the phone. “Yeah, no I’m fine to drive, I promise. Yeah, see you in a second.”

She hangs up and looks at Josie cryptically like she still isn’t sure what to think of the other girl. “Landon left his phone here. I need to bring it to him. We’re leaving early to catch our flight and he’ll need to charge it and stuff.”

The reminder that Landon is going home with Hope for Christmas break, that this will be Josie’s last time seeing Hope until after the new year, it feels like a door slamming on Josie’s heart’s already bruised fingers. 

She schools her features around the hurt the best she can. “Oh. Yeah, no of course. You should go bring that to him. Can’t fly on a dead phone battery. That’s prime candy crush time.” 

She takes a step back to give the other girl space, even though Hope’s still the one standing in the doorway. Hope doesn’t move. “Okay,” she says.

“So,” Josie says in what she knows is a horrible attempt at a chill, totally fine and friendly voice. “I guess, I’ll see you after break?”

“Yeah.” Hope looks at her for a long moment, her eyebrows drawn tight like she’s puzzling something over. Finally, she nods. Just once. Josie feels it come down like a guillotine. “I’ll see you after break.”

Then she’s gone, collecting her purse with its change of clothes for the night she was supposed to spend with Josie after the party, and Landon’s phone from where he left it in the kitchen, before slipping out the front door without another word to Josie.

Josie sits down on the side of her bed and puts her head in her hands. She did the right thing. She did. She knows it. She holds onto that belief even as the aching blackness rises and swallows her up. 

Who knew being a good friend could hurt so badly?


	2. Intermission: Winter Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \-- Lizzie and MG's POV --
> 
> “Maybe we should leave Josie and Hope’s messages to Josie and Hope. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever they’re doing.”
> 
> Lizzie takes a swig of the water then asks skeptically, “Like what?”
> 
> MG Shrugs. “Maybe those things really do remind them of each other, because they miss each other.”
> 
> Lizzie thinks this idea over for a moment. “That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”
> 
> “Well then at least it’d be half on-brand for one-half of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little breather, lol. 
> 
> Thank you guys for all of your lovely comments and support so far!! Makes my lil gay heart so happy to see other people are as invested in these two dummies as i am!

The front door has barely closed behind Hope before Lizzie sticks her head into Josie’s room. She takes one look at her sister sitting with her head in her hands and knows it’s a cry-pile kind of night.

“So, I know that was probably supposed to be a private moment,” she says causing Josie to look up at her. “But, you kind of did it right in the middle of the public hallway so MG and I heard everything.” 

“Sorry, Josie,” MG calls sheepishly from behind Lizzie. 

“Don't just stand there, MG!” She hisses to her boyfriend. “Make yourself useful and get the ice cream!”

Josie flops back on the bed. “That’s really not-“

“Of course it is,” Lizzie interrupts. She lays down next to Josie, taking careful stock of her sister’s breathing (deep yoga breaths like she does when she’s trying to keep her shit together) and looks for tear tracks on her cheeks (none yet). 

Josie sighs and gets up to get ready to go to sleep. “Look, Lizzie, I don’t know what you think you heard, but I’m fine.”

Lizzie doesn’t need to ask for a translation of this ‘fine.’ She doesn’t need a cartoon panel to see the flames surrounding Josie even if she doesn’t fully understand exactly what’s happened between her and Hope. 

“Ok,” Lizzie accepts slowly. 

She’s watched Josie cope with situations long enough to know from Josie’s tone that nothing else is going to come of this conversation unless Josie wants it to. 

It took her a long time to come to terms with Josie’s silent treatments, but her therapist was pretty proud when she did. Rightfully so, thank you. Lizzie thought handling her own emotions was hard, seems pretty selfish to expect her to know how to handle  _ other _ people’s, too.

She persevered, though, because that’s what Elizabeth Saltzman does. 

Lizzie shakes herself from her drunken, self-congratulating when MG appears with the double extreme moose tracks carton and two spoons (sigh, she’s trained him so well!). She makes a mental note to thank him appropriately tomorrow once Josie looks less like her cat got run over. 

Josie is still collecting her pajamas from her dresser when he closes the door silently on his way out. Lizzie clocks the way her sister carefully pushes the drawers back in. No loud slamming. Lizzie knows she made the right choice not to push tonight. 

Besides, even if it is annoying, some distant part of Lizzie’s brain recognizes that’s probably for the best given how much she has had to drink tonight. What if Josie spilled the tea and then Lizzie couldn’t even remember it the next morning? 

Lizzie scooches back up to the headboard and wiggles under Josie’s covers, tight jeans and uncomfortable party blouse and all. She could have easily gone next door and put on pajamas so she could have been comfortable for this cry-pile, but she doesn’t want to leave Josie alone. Selfless, truly. 

“Are you going to make me eat this alone or what?” Lizzie asks, popping the lid off and sticking the two spoons in. “As the girlfriend of one of our university’s star athletes, you know how important it is for me to take good care of this killer body of mine.”

That works. “Fine,” Josie groans and hops in next to her in her pj’s. 

She drags her laptop with her and puts on an old episode of Friends, the laugh track, and the late nineties quips the only sound in the room as they eat their ice cream and come down from the party-high (or party-low in Josie’s case). Lizzie settles in and lets it happen. 

Tonight she’ll let Josie have her little self-contained Evanescence-inspired angst time. Tomorrow she’ll drag it out of her with a pair of pliers if she has to. 

xx

MG is equal parts battling his hangover and battling the coffee pot when Josie comes into the kitchen the next morning. She doesn’t look to be faring much better than he or the coffee pot as she smiles tiredly and crumples into a barstool at the counter.

Finally, finally, he gets the coffee going. Once it finishes glugging and percolating, he makes them both a cup and slides Josie’s across to her. 

“Whipped cream?” Josie notes with a raised eyebrow.

“Call it an end of semester celebration.”

Josie scoffs, “I thought that’s what last night was supposed to be.”

“This one won’t leave you feeling like a run over trash bag the next morning.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she says, clinking her mug to his and taking a swig. 

Her joviality is short-lived though. When she sets her coffee back down on the counter she deflates, the small smile melting off of her face. Not that MG is surprised by this. It hadn’t reached her eyes to begin with. 

MG cradles his warm cup against his chest and looks past Josie out the kitchen window. Josie stares into the white fluff on top of her coffee and MG watches a squirrel dig around under a tree in the courtyard. It’s a little late in the year for the little guy (or early depending on what he’s up to). The leaves have all fallen and there’s snow in next week’s forecast, but MG isn’t one to question timing. 

If there’s one thing he’s learned over the years of knowing and loving the Saltzman twins, it’s the value of waiting. 

“What would you have done?” Josie asks, not looking up. “If Lizzie never liked you like that?”

MG sits quietly, his still alcohol-fuzzy brain digesting Josie’s question. It sounds like Lizzie may not have been too far off with her speculating the last few months.

“It would have been hard,” he says slowly, then quickly amends, “Hell, it  _ was _ hard. Do you remember senior year? When she was dating-”

“Sebastian. God, yes.” Josie shudders. “He was the worst.”

MG nods, because really, truly, he was. All six pompous British feet of him. If Coach hadn’t had a very strict ‘no fighting amongst the team’ rule, MG might have punched the backup quarterback a time or two. 

“The thing with Lizzie is… I had a crush on her, right? But ultimately I just wanted her to be happy. Even if that meant I stayed just a friend.” He sips his coffee and wipes the whipped cream off his nose.

“Even if it meant her being with Sebastian?” Josie asks, eyebrow raised skeptically.

MG grins. “See, that’s where I got lucky. She wasn’t happy with him.”

“But if she had been?”

“Then… Honestly, I don’t know, Jose. I was her friend. That was never dependent on what she could give me.” 

Josie nods. 

“But, Josie,” MG dips his head to get in her eye-line. “It would have hurt to have done it. To see her with that smarmy dickbag especially.” He tries for a grin. 

She gives him one, but it's too sad to be a win. 

“Look,” he sighs. “Sometimes, when you love someone, it’s better to have them in your life in a small capacity, than not have them at all. But also. Sometimes, you have to put yourself first. You have to decide how much hurt you’re willing to put up with for love. That looks different for everyone, y’know. You have to decide that for yourself.”

They sit in heavy silence watching each other for a few beats until there’s a knock at the door. It jars them from their tense little world. 

Josie looks like she doesn’t want to face herself, let alone whoever is knocking at the door. So, without a word, MG gets up and answers it. 

“Hey,” Hope says, looking just as bad as Josie in the next room. “Is uh, is Josie awake?”

“Uh…” Thankfully MG is saved from deciding whether to lie or not by Josie appearing by his side. 

“It’s ok, MG, I got this,” she says to him with a small smile and a hand on his arm. “Hope. Hi.”

MG leaves them to it and goes back to the kitchen. From there, he can’t hear everything, but he hears enough to know Hope is apologizing for something and then saying ‘you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me.’

She says something else about how friends should respect friends' boundaries or something, which MG takes as a pretty good sign from the universe to respect  _ their _ privacy and stop eavesdropping. He knows Lizzie would be disappointed in his lack of sleuthing, but Lizzie is still passed out in Josie’s room. So he doesn’t feel too guilty slipping out onto the back porch. 

Besides, if Josie wanted him to hear any of this, she would have invited Hope in to have some coffee or something. Or at least come sit on the couch while they talked. Anything other than keeping her firmly on the other side of the front door. 

He slides the door closed behind himself and settles into one of the lounge chairs Josie and Lizzie keep out here for tanning in the summer, thankful for the hoodie he’s wearing when a chilly breeze ruffles his hair. He looks for the squirrel he saw earlier and drinks his coffee. He tries not to worry about Josie, about the way she looked when she greeted Hope at the door. 

He’s known the twins since they were little. He and Josie were close long before he and Lizzie started dating. He knows just about all of her looks. It's hard not too with Josie. Her face is just so expressive, telegraphing her feelings even when he knows his friend would rather keep them secret. 

When Josie had come to the door she’d looked hurt. But not in the overt, ‘you’ve wronged me and now I’m rightfully pissed and will make you grovel’ way. He’s seen that look before. Saw it a lot the year before last when she was dating that girl Penelope. 

This was a different type of hurt. The one that showed in her eyes even as she made her lips smile. The quiet kind that always made him worry for her. Where Lizzie is all outward emotions, Josie tends to turn hers back in on herself. (MG has long since decided that's probably why the universe gave her such an expressive face, actually. If she wouldn’t tell people how she was feeling, those gigantic brown eyes would do it for her.)

So this morning, Josie hadn’t looked hurt  _ at _ Hope. Like maybe, she wasn’t hurt because of something Hope had done, but because of something she, Josie, had done. MG knows from experience how much worse that is. Josie is good at lots of things. Unfortunately, one of them is beating herself up. 

As if to prove his concerns, a few minutes later, Josie is sliding the door open and joining him. She sits down and now... Now she just looks lost. 

He switches his mug to his left hand, holds his right out to her, palm up. She looks at him, then takes it and squeezes it hard. 

“Want to wake Lizzie up for cry-pile take two?” He says after a while of them sitting there facing forward. 

“Yeah,” Josie breathes into the thin morning light. “Yeah, I think I do.”

xx

They don't leave for Mystic Falls for another few days. It’s only a two hour drive and it’s not like they’d be doing anything all that different there versus here. The main difference is that MG doesn’t have to sneak out of Lizzie’s room in the morning, praying not to run into Dr. Saltzman on his way out the door.

So they stay. 

Josie doesn’t seem to care one way or another. Actually, Josie doesn’t seem to really care about anything really they come to find out.

They’re in the sweet spot, between exams finishing and break beginning in earnest. So, the bars near campus that cater to the students aren’t full-on ghost town yet, but they’re also not packed to the gills. It’s perfect and definitely MG’s favorite time to go out. Usually, it’s Josie’s, too, but not this year.

Josie claims the reason she doesn’t want to go out or do much of anything besides sit in her pajamas is because she’s still recuperating from finals. MG and Lizzie let that fly for the first day or two before Lizzie starts to get impatient with being the patient sister. 

Luckily, MG is there to balance her out. 

Josie has just retreated to her room for more ‘Lana Del  _ Sad _ covers’ as Lizzie calls them on her ukulele, when MG loops an arm around Lizzie and redirects her back to the living room, away from the room she is trying to storm into. 

“Just give her some time,” he says placatingly.

“She’s my sister, MG, she doesn’t need time, she needs to snap out of this funk.”

“Just give her a few more days,” he pleads. “She’ll come around eventually. Come on, I've got ‘Into the Spiderverse’ on the TV.”

Thankfully Lizzie relents and follows him into the other room. He’d hate to have to caveman-carry her without her consent. In spite of what Lizzie believes, he’s a pretty big proponent of letting the Saltzman girls work things out at their own speed. Douchebag Brits notwithstanding.

xx

In the end, they compromise. 

Lizzie makes it halfway through the movie before breaking down Josie’s door and dragging her into the living room to squish between her and MG on the couch. 

“This movie is too good for you to miss,” is all she says, rewinding it back to the beginning so Josie can ‘properly appreciate it.’

xx

Eventually, their dad’s questions regarding when exactly they’ll be home can’t be dodged any longer and Lizzie and Josie decide to head home. They pack up Josie’s car (it doesn't make sense to bring both of theirs home, but also, Lizzie doesn’t like the idea of Josie making the two-hour drive by herself) and hit the road. 

MG is having lunch with Kaleb and a few of the other guys from the team who aren’t going home over break. He won’t be heading back to Mystic until after, so it's just the girls and the open road. 

Lizzie shows remarkable restraint and waits a full 25 minutes before leaning over and pausing Josie’s sad-sack playlist and asking, “So, are we going to talk about why you’ve become Captain von Broodpants?”

“I’m not Captain von whatever you just said.”

“Broodpants,” Lizzie supplies. “And this playlist is ninety percent Phoebe Bridgers, so, yeah I’d say you kind of are.”

“Would you rather I play Christmas music?” Josie asks, eyebrow raised to show what she thinks of the suggestion. 

Lizzie sighs deeply to show what she thinks of Josie dodging the question. Neither of them is fans of holiday music. Obviously that was not what she was angling for. “You know, I thought I was supposed to be the difficult twin.”

Josie shoots her a look that says Lizzie has no need to worry. Her position is in no danger of being thwarted. 

“Look, I feel I have shown a remarkable amount of understanding and restraint in letting you brood like season one Ryan Atwood,” she keeps talking over the top of Josie’s scoff, “but come  _ onnnn _ , Josie.” 

Lizzie turns to sit sideways in the passenger seat, adjusting the seat belt to accommodate her new position. She’s not about to be fighting that thing during this interrogation. This isn’t her first rodeo, thank you very much.

“I don’t even know what happened with you and Hope.”

She watches Josie squeeze the steering wheel before she responds, “Nothing happened.”

“Bullshit.”

Josie cuts her eyes over to Lizzie again, this time her gaze fiery before turning back to watch the highway in front of her. “I’m serious, Lizzie.” Her jaw clenches hard and brutal as she bites the words out. “Nothing happened.”

Lizzie throws her hands up in the air. 

_ Fine _ , if that’s how her sister wants to play things, then just fucking fine. Lizzie is only trying to help. But she can’t do that if Josie won’t let her. She’s not some bloody mind reader, damnit. This is what she gets for being concerned? Sometimes she really doesn’t understand why her therapist pushed her so hard to work on her empathy.

She turns the stupid sad playlist back on before Josie has a chance to. If this conversation is over, she wants Josie to know it's only because Lizzie  _ allowed _ it to be over. But just to further underscore that point, she makes sure to have the last word. 

“You can’t run from your shit forever, Josie,” she growls out and then cranks ‘Motion Sickness’ louder than it was probably ever meant to be played.

Somehow, over the opening guitar and drums, Lizzie can still hear Josie when she says, “Yeah. I’m really fucking aware.”

xx

By the time they pull up to their house, the tension has thankfully slackened. Lizzie would never say this out loud, but Josie’s playlist really was quite soothing, even at the high volume Lizzie had initially turned it to in her fit of pique.

Josie puts the car in park and they look up at the house through the windshield. It’s midday, so the Christmas lights aren’t on, but it's obvious their dad went above and beyond this year. No doubt egged on by his new girlfriend, Sheriff Whatsherface. 

Lizzie sighs when she sees not one, but two cars in the driveway. And unless their mom has suddenly had a change in careers, it’s not Caroline in there with their dad, but a member of Mystic Falls’ finest.

“Maybe he won’t make us watch ‘A Christmas Story,’ since she’s here,” Josie suggests hopefully.

Lizzie snorts. “Wanna bet?”

Josie taps her fingers on the steering wheel. “Winner gets to duck out first?”

“Deal,” Lizzie nods. They shake on it.

xx

Later, after Lizzie has snuck out of the living room with a feigned headache, leaving Josie to suffer through their dad’s favorite Christmas movie with him and the Sheriff, MG calls. He lets her know that he’s made it home safely and they schedule their activities for the next day (tree decorating, first at the Saltzmans’ and then at the Greasleys’).

Finally, after they catch up on everything else, he asks the question they’ve both been dreading. “How is she?”

“Well,” Lizzie says, laying back on her bedspread, beyond grateful she and Josie don’t share a room. “She stopped playing that ‘wise men say only fools rush in’ song -- god, who knew a ukulele could sound that  _ sad _ .”

“Well, that’s an improvement,” MG says.

“Hah!” Lizzie laughs. “It would be. Except she then transitioned to playing high school era Death Cab.”

“Oh.”

“I honestly don’t even know if that's a positive or negative development, MG.”

“Well, as long as it’s not Bon Iver, we should still be in the clear?”

Lizzie finds herself smiling despite the situation. MG always seems to know just what to say. She settles further into her pillows and says, “So, tell me about lunch. Did you miss me the whole time?”

“Oh, terribly,” He deadpans. “I almost couldn’t finish my pizza, I was so distraught. But don’t worry. I powered through.”

She grins. “That’s my boyfriend.”

xx

Christmas passes by sedately enough. 

Christmas turning into a non-event has been one of the most surprising things about adulthood for Lizzie. Her dad still likes to pretend that at twenty, she and Josie are still kids, but the fact that no one wakes up before nine a.m. on Christmas day anymore really suggests otherwise. 

At some point, everyone stopped rushing to the tree in the living room and instead rushed to the coffee pot in the kitchen. Lizzie stumbles downstairs to find her father pouring his first cup. His hair is smushed on one side and sticking up in some places. 

“Morning,” she groans, partially because she and MG and Josie stayed up too late last night hitting the eggnog stash, and partially because her dad is wearing the ridiculous red bathrobe that looks like a Santa outfit. He’s worn it every year since the girls got it for him in fifth grade. And yet, every year, Lizzie is still surprised by just how dweeby he looks in it. 

“Merry Christmas,” he answers in his best Santa impression. She hugs him despite this. 

“Merry Christmas,” she says back, face pressed against the scratchy white fake fur ruff of the robe’s collar. Truly, this thing is hideous. Not for the first time she wonders if her dad wears it for tradition or just to embarrass them. 

“Josie not up yet?” He asks.

Lizzie snorts. “You mean Scrooge? No, I think she’s sleeping in a little longer after spending last night trying to steal the Who’s Christmas.” She knows she’s mixing her metaphors here, but one, she hasn’t had her coffee yet and two, she doesn’t care. 

Josie’s been oscillating between distant and petulant for since the night of the party and it is exhausting. Lizzie misses her sister. The real one. Not this dark version who Hope somehow left them with.

“Yeah,” her dad rubs the back of his neck, causing his hair to stick up even more. Really, he’s lucky he’s got a good job and is a really good father, because otherwise, Lizzie has no idea what Sheriff Mac could see in him. Although, she will admit the beard is a nice improvement. Rugged, she supposes, if you’re into that sort of ‘unkempt dad’ kind of thing. “I noticed she’s been a little…”

“Nightmare Before Christmas-y?” Lizzie asks, stepping around him and pouring her coffee.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly the phrase I was going to use, but…” He looks at his daughter. “I’m worried about her.”

“You and me both,” she sighs. It feels like this is all she ever talks about anymore. This  _ non _ -thing going on with Josie. 

“Did something happen at school?”

“Not if you ask Josie,” she says bitterly.

“Not if you ask me what?” Josie asks, wandering into the kitchen rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“If we can go look at Christmas lights tonight,” their dad says smoothly enough that Lizzie wonders if she should be worried over how quick he is with a lie.

Josie all but falls into the coffee pot when she gets to it. She must have hit the nog harder than Lizzie realized last night. Either that or she didn’t sleep well. “Yeah, sure,” Josie agrees. “Might be nice to get out and see the neighborhood.”

Lizzie whips around to look at her. “Really?”

Josie just shrugs like she hasn’t systematically turned down every offer to leave the house since they got here a week ago. “Yeah.”

Well, I’ll be damned, Lizzie thinks. If it isn’t a Christmas miracle.

“Then it’s settled,” their dad beams, clapping his hands together. “The Saltzman gang will ride at nightfall!”

And just like that Lizzie is back to groaning. Because while yes, it is great that her sister seems to be taking a step forward, good god Dad is a dork. She heads to the living room before he can say anything else equally mortifying. 

xx

Josie comes back late one night between Christmas and New Year. Those six days always blend together for Lizzie, so she doesn’t remember which one it is, but it doesn’t matter anyway. That’s  _ really _ not the point.

“I take it drinks with Jade went well,” Lizzie drawls from the kitchen island where she’s making hot cocoa. 

Josie’s hand automatically comes up to her face like her lips are what gave her away, not the hickey forming on her neck. 

“Relax. I’m not judging. As long as you're happy, I’m happy.” As if to prove her point she holds out a mug for Josie like it’s a peace offering. 

Josie sighs and takes the mug of cocoa. She’d clearly been expecting more of an interrogation.

Lizzie isn’t going to let her slide completely, though. Not after the last two weeks of weirdness. “So are you?” she asks. “Happy?”

Josie takes a sip of her hot chocolate before answering, “I’m trying to be.”

They watch each other for a bit before Lizzie pushes off the counter and heads to the fridge. “We need whipped cream.”

She squirts a huge dollop on both her and Josie’s cocoa without asking. It’s the best she can do if Josie wants to handle this on her own and not tell her what the hell is happening. Lizzie hopes it’s good enough. 

xx

“So Josie seems…”

“Less Tim Burton, more Wes Anderson?”

“I was going to say, more back to normal, but yeah, same concept,” MG laughs. He wraps an arm around his girlfriend and still finds himself getting a little giddy when she leans back into him. 

It’s New Year’s Eve and they’re at the Sheriff's house of all places. Apparently, in an effort to engender some local goodwill the Machados had decided to throw a New Year’s Eve bash. There’s a surprisingly large amount of alcohol available, so MG has little to no complaints. 

It doesn’t hurt that Lizzie has dressed up for the occasion wearing some sparkly beaded flapper dress that brings out just how blue her eyes are. MG is a simple guy. He loves any excuse to flaunt his girlfriend on his arm. Especially when she wears dresses like this. You don’t spend years crushing on Lizzie Saltzman and not take full advantage of any opportunities to show her off. 

With no small effort (he’s only human, okay), he pulls his attention away from his smoking hot date and re-focuses on Josie. 

“She looks like she might even be enjoying herself,” MG says, nodding in Josie’s direction as he sips his Jack and coke.

Across the room, Josie is laughing talking to Ethan, Sheriff Mac’s son. He and his sister both are about their age, and while Lizzie reported that things had been stiff and forced-play-date awkward the first few times the four of them had met, tonight everyone’s pretty loose. Just another benefit of all this free-flowing alcohol no doubt, MG decides.

“Yeah,” Lizzie responds suspiciously. 

“What...?” MG asks, wary of the blonde’s tone. 

“Nothing,” Lizzie says nonchalantly, turning more fully into him and grabbing a champagne from a random stranger who definitely isn’t a waiter and definitely was about to drink the beverage himself. “It’s just that earlier when I went through her phone, I couldn’t see any change in her messages with Hope. So, I don’t—”

“Wait, wait, you went through her  _ phone _ ?” MG splutters. “Lizzie…”

“Oh, psh,” she waves his chiding away. “If she didn’t want me to look through it, she wouldn’t have our birthday as her passcode.”

“I don’t think that’s… You know what,” he decides this is not the time to discuss healthy boundaries with Lizzie and instead finishes the rest of his drink. “Never mind.”

He’s rewarded with a kiss on his cheek. “I love it when you realize I’m right,” Lizzie coos. “But anyway, back to my findings and the inscrutable mating habits of the less than straight: their messages made no sense, MG. It was just a string of pictures—“

“Woah, now,” MG pulls back. “I am not drunk enough to hear about your sister, my  _ friend’s _ nudes.” 

Lizzie swats his chest. “Don’t be a pervert, Milton. They weren’t  _ those _ kinds of pictures. Don’t you think I would have led with that? Sheesh. Burying the lead isn’t really my style. You should know that by now.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” MG relaxes a little, knowing he isn’t going to have to scrub his ears and brain with bleach after this conversation. “So what kind of pictures were they?”

“That’s the thing,” Lizzie says, smacking his chest again, this time for emphasis. 

MG’s glad, not for the first time, that he started lifting weights back in 9th grade. If not for the football scholarship it eventually led to, then for the added muscle it has built up. Added muscle which now protects him from Lizzie’s blunt force hands. Don’t let the dress and perfectly done hair fool you, his girl can still pack a smack. 

Lizzie continues, “They weren't  _ any _ kind of pictures. It was all just  _ junk _ . There was no theme! Unless the theme was being as nonsensical as possible, in which case congratulations, they nailed it. I’m sure they’ll get a trophy of some sort at the SAG awards this year.”

“You know that doesn’t stand for Straight And Gay awards, right? Josie’s been over this before-”

“Yes, yes, MG, I’m perfectly aware, it’s called a joke. Which is what I’m assuming Hope and Josie’s little random scrapbook of a message thread must be: a joke. Because why else would you send someone a picture of a hideous garden gnome and say ‘this made me think of you’? And then be perfectly fine with receiving a picture of a donut in response?” Lizzie glares at her sister across the room. “I mean really. Is this how adulterers hide their cheating ways? Through top-secret photographic codes?!”

It is truly a testament to how long he’s known Lizzie that MG’s eyebrows are not in his fro by the end of her rant. 

“One,” he says calmly, taking the empty champagne flute from Lizzie’s flailing hand. “Josie wouldn’t cheat. You and I both know that. And, two,” he snags the water he set down on the bookshelf earlier and hands it to the blonde. “Maybe we should leave Josie and Hope’s messages to Josie and Hope. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever they’re doing.”

Lizzie takes a swig of the water then asks skeptically, “Like what?”

“I dunno,” MG shrugs looking back over at Josie who is now playing rock-paper-scissors with Maya for some reason. “Maybe those things really do remind them of each other, because they miss each other.”

Lizzie thinks this idea over for a moment. “That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Well then at least it’d be half on-brand for one-half of them,” he says, then takes her hand and starts jiving towards the area by the sound system. “Now lets you and I also get on brand and go dance. These white people are so stiff it’s killing the celebratory vibe in here.”


	3. Part II, Act 1 - Spring Semester, First Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the story of how Hope learned how to be a best friend. And then learned some other stuff, too.
> 
> \-- Part One of Hope's POV --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo, boy. sorry this took so long, guys. the last "semester" of this story really kicked my ass.
> 
> our girl Hope has...a lot of thoughts, lmao. a better writer coulda cut this down to size and left only what you guys really needed. instead, what you get is me, Hope, and everything but the kitchen sink!
> 
> first half now, second half in a couple of days when I finish editing! cheers!

Landon proposes on New Year’s Eve. 

It’s his last night in New Orleans. In the morning, he’s leaving for Oregon to settle into his new apartment. His job starts in a week and Hope is beyond proud of him for landing a position at his hometown’s online newspaper. 

He’s been downplaying it, saying it’s barely a step up from an internship, but Hope knows he’s just as thrilled as she is. So, to celebrate the end of his Pre-Adult Life (and the calendar year), they’ve been drinking like tourists in the Quarter. 

Midnight strikes and amidst the cacophony of cheers and brass bands, Hope is kissing Landon and texting Josie “happy new year” with as few typos as she can manage given how many hurricanes she’s had. 

She’s squinting at the screen when Landon leans in and puts a hand over hers. He’s had his hands obsessively stuffed in the pockets of his jean jacket all night, barely even removing one to hold a drink, so his fingers are warm against her own chilled owns. She smiles instinctively and looks up from her screen to see him looking at her like she’s the reason everyone is celebrating in the street around them.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she smiles. She snuggles back against his chest and turns to her phone to look at the photo Josie has just sent her in response.

Landon isn’t finished, though, apparently. He squeezes her hand and when she looks back up at him, he still has that wonder-filled, you-just-saved-my-life smile stretched across his face. He clears his throat. It’s then she notices what’s in his other hand. She freezes. 

“I like, _really_ love you,” Landon says. Hope can’t look away from the hand he’s holding out in front of her though. “And, if you’ll let me, I want to love you for the rest of my life.”

A ring. He’s holding a ring.

It’s not a _real_ proposal he goes on to explain, but it sure as hell _feels_ like one. He doesn’t get down on one knee (not that Hope blames him, these streets are disgusting even on the best of days), but he does offer her a ring and a promise. Which is more than anyone’s ever done for Hope before outside of her mom and her aunt.

“Look, I know everything is about to change,” he says, swallowing heavily. “What with me moving to the other side of the country, and I know we’ve never done the long-distance thing, and it’s scary, and this semester is going to be crazy for you, but...” 

Landon holds the ring up in front of them. It’s simple and silver and makes Hope’s heart stop in her chest. He wraps his other arm around her waist and pulls her more firmly back against him. 

“I want to make this work. I want _us_ to work,” he says against her hair. “I don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of this semester, but I want us to be together. I know I’m leaving tomorrow, and that kind of ruins the whole romantic promise to ‘never leave your side for the rest of our lives,’ but I swear once you graduate I really won’t leave again.”

She sucks in a breath. Because in typical Landon fashion, regardless of how dorky his phrasing may be, he’s still hit the nail right on the head. He may play at being a clueless doof, but he’s always been so good at reading her. 

He knows this is everything she’s never allowed herself to want. Someone who loves her. Loves her enough to never leave. 

“So. Hope Andrea Mikaelson. Will you take this ring as a promise that one day, after student loans quit kicking my ass, I’ll buy you the real thing?”

And Hope knows him. She knows that even though he’s couching this in jokes, he’s serious. She can feel his heart hammering in his chest against her back and knows he’s being as sincere as he’s ever been. What he’s promising -- he really means it. If she says yes, he’ll do everything he can to keep that promise. 

So she does.

She nods, hoping the tears on her cheeks aren’t too obvious under the moving lights of sparklers and glow sticks and fireworks, and says, “Yes, Landon Jacob Kirby.” She tries to say as smoothly as possible given that she’s crying in the middle of the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve. “Even if you never get out from under student loans and we die with them still hanging over our heads, yes, I will take this ring.”

He gives a little whoop, squeezing her to him, and slips the ring onto her right hand. It blends perfectly with the myriad of other rings she wears on a daily basis, looking right at home on her hand. The fact that it’s not a traditional engagement ring with a flashy diamond doesn’t matter. Landon puts it on and it feels… it feels real. It feels serious. It feels binding. 

She looks at the ring and loses her breath all over again. A cocktail of nerves and elated disbelief swirl potently in her chest. She’s going to get a happy ending. 

xx

Later, after they make it back home and do some more _private_ celebrating, she asks him what this means for them.

Landon pulls Hope closer, their still-heated bodies sliding together under the covers, and kisses the top of her head. “Technically,” he admits with a laugh, “it doesn’t really change anything.”

She cranes her head to look up at him skeptically. He must be able to read her thoughts, though, because he laughs warmly at her raised eyebrow and pulls her back to his chest.

“What I mean is,” he explains, “we were already promising to be together and to keep working for this. That’s what dating is.”

He does have a point there. Even if it does take some of the romance out of it. 

“The ring is just a reminder that even though I’m not all up in your business and kissing your cute, concerned face every day I’m wishing I was.”

She rolls her eyes. “My cute, concerned face will be missing kissing your cute dork face, too.”

“This dork face is pleased to hear that,” he chuckles.

From this position, she can hear his heart beating steadily beneath her ear. Just a shade quicker than normal, no doubt due to the considerably crazy night they’ve had. She feels so safe tucked under his arm like this. There are few situations where she feels completely loved and cared for — this is one of them. 

“So…” she starts. “Should I not be updating my Facebook relationship status, then?”

“Hope, I don’t think I’ve seen you log onto Facebook _once_ in the four years we’ve been dating.”

Another very good point. He’s going to be so good if the paper ever decides to let him cover topics bigger than the local sausage festival, or whatever it is they do in small-town Oregon. 

“But like… Are we going to tell people? Are you gonna tell Raf?”

“Raf went with me to pick out the ring.”

“Oh.” Another thing Raf knew, but she didn’t.

“Do you want to tell people?” Landon asks, sounding genuinely curious.

And that’s the thing… 

“I don’t...know…” Hope answers. Which is weird, probably. Or maybe not weird, but… Probably not _good_. Landon’s best friend already knows and obviously they’ll have to tell people when they actually get officially engaged. 

That’s kind of half the point, isn’t it? 

And eventually, they’ll get married and what is that if not a public declaration slash celebration of their relationship. 

Hope loves Landon, but she blanches at that image. Marriage. She’s never let herself want something like that. Now suddenly it feels so _close_. It’s jarring, the abrupt change. The shift has Hope’s lungs freezing up. 

“I don’t know,” she says again. This time she knows she sounds a bit frantic. Her nerves are bleeding into her words as she asks him, “Is that bad?”

Landon maneuvers around on the mattress so he can look her in the face. “Babe,” he cups her cheek and kisses her once. “Hey, shh, shh. Look at me.”

She does. Grounds herself looking into his dark eyes.

“Look,” he says soothingly. “I know we’ve never really talked about this kind of stuff before and maybe I blew it by making it all dramatic with a ring, I’m sorry. I just… I just want you to know how much I love you. That’s all. I know you’re private about stuff. There’s no reason to get weird about this. It can be just for us.”

“Just for us,” she repeats.

“Yeah,” he smiles.

She leans forward and kisses him. Sometimes, she’s surprised she’s managed to find a guy who is willing to love her like this: even when she gets freaked out and needs reassurance. She doesn’t know when exactly Landon grew from the goofy, nerdy Freshman she met to this kind, understanding man. It doesn’t really matter; she loved him then and she really loves him now as he’s smoothing her pieces back together. 

After her parents, she kind of stopped believing it was possible. Of course, Freya loves her, and Keelin, too, but… No amount of her aunts’ affection can remove the dark part of her heart that knows, just knows, nothing good lasts. 

Since she met Landon, she’s been waiting for the other shoe to fall. But now… Half proposal or not… Maybe this good thing of hers, of theirs, really could last. 

She knows he’s been trying to prove that to her for the last few years. He hasn’t had an easy go at life either and yet, he hasn’t let that stop him from loving so openly and fully. She wants to be like that. She wants to believe that love can be more than heartbreaking memories and waking up in the middle of the night realizing you’ll never see someone again. 

She’d never thought about love like this (like it could be light and easy and not all wrenching open your ribcage and exposing your heart to the universe) until she met him. Until he’d showed it to her, shared it with her. 

Hope doesn’t know what she’d have done without him honestly. She looks down at the ring, glinting dimly in the low light of her bedroom. She lets herself think that maybe, just maybe, she won’t ever have to find out.

xx

The next morning, Hope drives Landon to the airport and they both do a spectacular job not not-crying as they say goodbye. 

“It’s only for a little while,” he promises, his voice watery as they hug tightly. “So quick you won’t even miss me.”

“I doubt that,” she says, kissing his chin and then shoving him towards the automatic doors. 

And then he’s gone and Hope is left standing on the curb, drying her eyes and getting berated by the police officer to move her car from the drop off area. 

“Happy New Year to you, too, Mister,” she yells as he blows his shrill whistle at her. 

Her momentary annoyance helps distract her from the sinking feeling at watching Landon walk away from her. She’s already stopped crying by the time she clicks her seatbelt on and pulls away from the curb. 

xx

On her way back from the airport, she swings through downtown. 

The streets are still littered with the remnants of last night’s festivities (trash and drunks alike). This city is not one to give up on a party quickly. She finds a parking spot not too far from her destination and walks in the direction of Cafe du Monde. 

She hasn’t been here since the first time Landon came to visit, but she thinks Josie would really enjoy a can of the chicory coffee they sell. She could just buy some at any grocery store here, but it’s the thought that counts, the effort.

On the way, she passes the square she and Landon were in last night. The statue they were standing next to last night when he gave her the ring is right in front of her, and she pulls out her phone to take a selfie. She poses with the iron jazz musicians, then starts to type out _‘thinking of you!’_

She stops. Fingers hovering over the keyboard.

It’s too similar to what she and Josie say. It doesn't feel right to send it to Landon, too. So she backspaces and says ‘ _love you!’_ instead. 

She’s waiting at a crosswalk when he texts back, ‘ _love u more. boarding now. text u when i land!’_

She sends him a kissing emoji and then toggles back to her conversation with Josie. 

Josie still hasn’t responded to the message Hope sent earlier this morning, which probably means she is still sleeping off her hangover. Between the pictures Josie posted and sent her last night and the blurry videos on Lizzie’s insta story, it looks like they had just as wild of a time and she and Landon did. 

Hope doesn't let the radio silence deter her. They’re way past the point of any double-texting hang-ups. 

Truthfully, since they left campus, Hope has been trying harder with Josie. The last two times they saw each other weigh heavily on her conscience. She hates how awkward and tense they left things. All because she got drunk and let her emotions, her anger, her insecurities, get the better of her. 

She wants the easy openness of their friendship back. She wants the Josie she’s grown so fond of. The one who is always laughing and never makes Hope wait longer than a class to text back. 

Hope has basically been spamming the brunette in the hopes they can get things back on track. Now that she’s had Josie’s friendship, the thought of going back to campus without it (on top of going back without Landon) is just untenable. 

She is nothing if not determined when she sets her mind to something. So, she types out _‘beignets? thoughts??’_ and tucks her phone back in her pocket.

Ten minutes later, she’s standing in line waiting to check out at the coffee stand when her phone buzzes.

_Am I still drunk or are you making up words?_

Hope laughs and snags a box of the Cafe du Monde beignet mix to buy as well. 

_can’t believe you don’t know what beignets are!! how are we friends?!_

_We won’t be if you don’t quit yelllinnnnggg._

_josette saltzman we will see which of us is yellllllinnngg once you try these bad boysss_

_Sounds vaguely threatening. Lizzie says to count her in, too._

Hope grabs another box just to be on the safe side. She can’t wait to blow Josie’s mind. 

xx

When she gets back to campus, Hope is pleased to find her efforts seem to have paid off. She’s only halfway through hanging her clothes back up in the closet, when Josie sends her a picture of her, Lizzie, and MG sprawled on the couch in their apartment.

_Movie night?_

Hope leaves the rest of her clothes draped on her bed. She snags the boxes of beignet mix, a coat, and is out the door on her way faster than Lizzie could say ‘overeager much?’

Because, yeah. She _is_ eager to see Josie. She’s missed her best friend. 

xx

Somehow, it’s like their fight before break never happened. Hope isn’t sure if she’s imagining things, but it’s like they’re both working hard to move past the entire… Rafael strangeness. Or at least Hope is working hard and/or it really wasn’t that big of a deal to Josie to begin with, Hope maybe just read into things too much. That happens sometimes. 

Sometimes Hope feels like she missed some crucial lesson in growing up that explained how people interacted with one another. She can't even blame her parents’ death for this. She’s just always struggled with relating to people, her own age, or otherwise. 

Which is why she has deemed it so important to not lose Josie. It’s never awkward with Josie. She just _is_ , and more importantly, she lets Hope just be as well. Hope would rather throw herself into a bottomless pit than lose that now that Landon is gone. As embarrassing as it may sound, Josie is pretty much her only friend on campus. So she’ll be damned if she loses her.

Hope may be pretty clueless when it comes to most things, but even she is pretty sure she crossed some sort of boundary during the end of the term party. So to avoid crossing it again, she makes the executive decision to just not to bring up any relationship stuff with Josie. 

She meant it when she told Josie she wanted to respect her privacy. Granted, she had been a little strung out when she’d showed up at her door that morning. She probably would have promised Josie the moon, if that was what it took. Her desperation didn’t make her apology any less sincere, though. 

She is determined to do this thing the right way. 

Which means that she doesn’t ask Josie about Raf. She doesn’t ask Josie about the blonde girl who leaves flirtatious comments on every one of Josie’s insta posts. She doesn’t ask Josie about the long-haired, smug-looking guy who had his arm around her in her NYE pictures either. She just doesn’t ask period.

And she also doesn’t _tell_ Josie. About any relationship stuff. Namely, she doesn’t tell Josie about Landon’s semi-proposal. 

She isn’t hiding it from her, per se, it’s just that… 

The first time they hang out, they’re busy making beignets. Then the next time Josie is over, she’s telling Hope all about her dad’s new girlfriend (which incidentally answers some of Hope’s questions regarding that guy from NYE -- Ethan, the potential step-brother). Then they’re catching up on Killing Eve and Josie is sitting Hope down to watch a few of this year’s Oscar nominees. And then. Before Hope knows it. It just seems like it’d be weird to mention it.

So she doesn’t. She keeps it stuffed inside along with all of her other little secrets and worries. She doesn’t like keeping things from Josie, the idea making her heart hurt in the most peculiar way, but… She supposes it must be for the best.

Besides. 

Like Landon said, it doesn’t change anything. She and Landon are still together, just like they were before. He’s just on the other side of the country chasing his dream. And she’s… She’s working on figuring out exactly what her dreams are. 

It’s not exactly news, is the thing. Josie already knows all of that, basically.

(Also. There is a small, petty part of Hope that she isn’t proud of, that says if Josie can keep secrets, so can she.)

xx

Hope waits outside of the English building for Josie. They’re going to scope out the new coffee shop that opened downtown and maybe even get some studying done. Anything is possible on a day like today, Hope supposes. 

There’s snow in the clouds above that is refusing to fall and the campus is bathed in muted grey-white light. Hope stomps her boots on the ground and is glad Josie reminded her to grab a scarf on her way out of the apartment this morning. 

She doesn’t mind waiting for her friend, regardless of the temperature, but the scarf definitely helps. Wind flicks the end out in front of her. But she doesn’t bother taming it. Her hands are nicely toasting in her pockets, thank you. 

Soon, Josie appears, but she isn’t alone. Raf is holding open the door for her as they exit. He hands her a stack of books after she finishes putting on her gloves and Hope swallows down the sudden wave of discomfort at seeing them interact so easily. She’s still a little ashamed of her outburst last semester.

It’s with this in mind that Hope steps forward to the pair. 

“Hi, guys,” she says, taking care to smile at Raf and Josie both. She wants to show Josie she is serious about being a better friend. She can play nice with Josie’s ‘boo things.’ There’s no need for Josie to hide them from her.

“Hope, hey,” Josie smiles brightly. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She turns to Raf, though, intent on showing a friendly face. “Raf, I haven’t seen you since before break. How was Christmas? Landon said you got to visit your uncle.”

It is this moment, Hope will soon realize, that is when she bites off more than she can chew. She should really think things through, sometimes.

“Yeah, yeah, it was great!” He beams. “We spent the whole break at he and his wife’s cabin in Idaho. Which was way more fun than it sounds, trust me,” he laughs. 

Hope watches as Josie laughs with him. 

Then Raf is reaching out a hand to touch Hope's shoulder warmly. “Hey, congratulations, by the way! I kept meaning to text you, but my cousins kept me pretty busy. But congrats!” He’s smiling his most charming, earnestly happy smile and Hope wishes she had never come over here to begin with.

“What?” Josie laughs, confused. “Congratulations on what?”

Josie looks between Raf and Hope. Hope feels all the blood drain from her face and the house of cards begins to topple.

“Uh,” Raf says, also confused now. “Landon asked Hope to…”

“To not dump him while he was in Oregon,” Hope cuts in quickly. 

She prays the joke will land and that she and Josie can go get coffee and perhaps forget this conversation happened. Or if not that, then that Hope can explain to Josie why she neglected to mention this small tidbit of information to her best friend sooner.

Raf snorts. “Please tell me that isn’t how he phrased it.”

“Phrased what?” Josie asks, now only looking at Hope’s face. Hope can’t look away from her friend’s eyes, brown and laced with dawning comprehension.

Raf, apparently unaware of the disaster looming around them, answers for Hope. “Landon got Hope here a, what did he call it? A pre-engagement, engagement ring. He was _supposed_ to tell her that he’d love her forever, through the distance and whatever post-graduation throws at them, and that he’ll eventually propose for real, but it sounds like he went full-dummy and, and…” Raf seems to have clued in to the tension between the two friends. He trails off.

“Landon proposed to you?”

“Um. Not exactly?”

“ _Hope_.”

“Uh. You know,” Raf says, taking a large step back. “I just remembered I have to be… Somewhere… Else…” 

He beats a hasty retreat, not that either girl is paying attention.

“Josie,” Hope says, taking a step closer to her friend. “I know how this sounds--”

“Like you hid a whole ass proposal shortly upon the heels of getting upset with me over hiding a few dates?”

Hope looks at her feet. Because yeah, that is pretty much the short and the long of it. “Josie, I’m sorry.”

Hope hears Josie take in a breath and then say, “I have to go.”

xx

They don’t go to the new coffee shop that day. They actually don't go anywhere that day. Not together at least.

Josie walks away from Hope and Hope can only watch as it happens. Because unfortunately, Josie does have a point. 

Hope understands why Josie would be mad. Hell, Hope is mad at herself for causing the problem. First, by overreacting in December, and now again by doing the very thing she was upset at Josie for. She just cannot seem to do right by this girl.

This is why she doesn’t have friends.

There’s only one thing she can think to do as she walks back to her apartment. She digs her phone out and hits the first contact on her favorites list. 

“What’s cookin', Little Mikaelson?”

“I messed up,” Hope tells her aunt bluntly.

There’s the unmistakable sound of a door slamming on the other end and the jazz music in the background suddenly gets muffled. Freya stepping into her office no doubt. 

“Which jail do I need to wire bail to?” Freya asks all business.

“Not funny, Frey.”

“I agree. Incarceration isn’t a joke. Which is why you need to tell me what happened?”

Hope exhales hard through her nose, her breath puffing out in a plume in front of her. “I’m not- Not that kind of trouble, Freya. Although, now you do have me worried about what you think I do out here at school.” 

“Nothing we didn’t do ourselves, probably,” Freya says. “I went to college. I know how things can go.”

Hope unlocks her apartment and rather than turn on the lights just falls back against the door. “I messed up with Josie.”

The teasing tone dissolves from Freya’s voice. “Josie, your best friend Josie?”

Hope closes her eyes, leans her head back against the door behind her. “Yes.” 

And then Hope explains it all to her aunt. She starts with the fight she and Josie had before break and ends it a few moments ago when it all blew up in her face. In the process, she ends up having to tell Freya that Landon semi-proposed, but thankfully her aunt doesn’t stop Hope to chastise her for not telling her or Keelin that either. 

“So,” Hope says, finally finishing her tale of woe. “In conclusion: I messed up.” 

“Well,” Freya says. “One, you’ve always been private, so I don’t blame you for not telling anyone about your change in relationship status -- not even your favorite aunts; you know what Keelin and I think of Landon. But… You know Josie does have a point.”

“I know,” Hope groans. 

“Double standards are a bitch, babygirl,” Freya says lightly. “I think you know what you need to do.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I do.”

“Good,” Freya says. She waits a beat and when she speaks again her voice is lighter, an almost forced casualness to it. “Also, your relationship with Landon is between you and Landon, of course. But… Maybe you should think about why you didn’t want to tell anyone about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said, honey. Now I gotta go. Kohl is developing some sort of cocktail and I’m certain he is using all of the topshelf liquor to do it.”

“Okay,” Hope says, still confused. “Tell him I want to try that cocktail next time I’m home.”

“We’ll see about that,” Freya laughs, the jazz music getting louder on her end. “Call me if you need anything else. Bail money or otherwise. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Hope smiles. 

She hangs up and allows herself a second of easy breathing. Then she looks around her dark, empty apartment and pushes off from the door. She has somewhere she needs to be.

xx

For the second time in their short friendship, Hope finds herself on Josie’s doorstep, desperate to apologize.

This time Lizzie is the one opening the door. “Josie, it’s for you!” The blonde yells before beelining it back to the living room and sitting purposefully in the armchair that affords her a perfect view of the front door.

“Hi to you, too, Lizzie,” Hope says without raising her voice. She knows from experience that from here to that chair it’s not necessary to be heard. Lizzie just raises the most accusatory eyebrow Hope has seen since high school.

Josie takes her time coming to the door. Thankfully though, she takes mercy on Hope and invites her inside. Hope chooses to believe that’s a good sign, not just simply Josie taking pity on her in this cold.

Josie leads them to her bedroom and before she even has the door closed Hope is apologizing. “Jo, I’m sorry. I messed up.”

“And how did you mess up?” Josie asks, sitting on the side of her bed. Behind her, Hope can see a pair of her own sweatpants crumpled in a ball in the corner from where Hope left them last time she was here. 

“I did the thing I was upset at you for doing. I hid something from you and,” Hope sits next to Josie on the bed, “that’s not what best friends do.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because,” Hope rubs her face, huffing out a humorless laugh. “Because I’m dumb and a bad friend. Hold on, that’s not a cop-out, let me finish. I’m not… I’m not used to having people I trust. I don’t really have many friends and so. Sometimes, I mess things up. Things that might seem like pretty basic stuff, I just, _shwoop_ ,” Hope makes a gesture with her hand passing over the top of her head. “Completely miss them.”

Josie is at least looking at Hope now, so she continues.

“I thought that the solution to our fight before break was to just not talk about any relationship stuff. I thought I would honor your privacy and let you keep stuff from me, and I would… God, it sounds so stupid.”

“And you would keep things secret too?”

“Yes!” Hope says, then sees Josie’s face crumple. “Wait, no, not like that. Not in a petty way, just in a respecting-the-boundaries way. Mostly. Ok, maybe also in a very small petty way, but I’m sorry and I’m really not proud of that!”

“Hope. I never had a problem talking about relationship stuff. I only didn’t mention the couple of dates with Raf because it wasn’t that big of a deal. This…” Josie flails her arm a little, clearly fed up. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but an engagement seems kind of like a big deal.”

“It’s not a real engagement,” Hope is quick to clarify. This seems like a very important point suddenly.

Josie just raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “A pre-engagement, whatever! Still big, Hope!”

“I know,” Hope acquiesces. She nods, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry. But,” she looks up at Josie hopefully. “If it makes you feel any better, that wasn’t just a _you_ thing. It was an _everybody_ thing. Raf only knew because he went with Landon to pick the ring out apparently. I didn’t even tell my aunt about it.”

Now Josie is looking at her with a frown. “Why not?”

“Because I’m scared!” 

Hope gets up and starts pacing. The honesty of her words filling her with a nervous energy she usually tries to avoid. She’s been thinking about this since her aunt posed the question a few hours ago. The thoughts rattling around like marbles under the steady panic over messing things up with Josie. 

“Because if I tell other people about it, then it’s real, and if it’s real then I can lose it. And I can’t lose it, Jo,” she looks at Josie quickly, painfully aware her panic is visible on her face as well as in her voice. “I just can’t.”

Josie exhales audibly. “I know,” she says, voice suddenly thick like she’s feeling all of these emotions right along with Hope. “I know.”

“I never thought I’d get a chance at a happy ending, Josie,” Hope is revealing, because apparently: in for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well lay all her baggage out on the table, while they’re here. “I just- I didn’t think there was a person out there who would take the time to know me, know my flaws, and then still decide to stay.”

She knows there’s more to it than that. Can feel it in the way her heart doesn’t feel relief at admitting it. Hell, at this point she isn’t surprised. She’s so repressed, her baggage probably has baggage. Most days, she feels less like a girl, more like a Russian doll of issues. But this is a truth she can share with Josie and mean it.

“Hope.” Josie says her name like she’s just told her the most heartbreaking thing. 

Hope sniffs, surprised to have found herself here, surprised to be fighting back tears in Josie’s bedroom all over again over yet another guy. 

What is with her that all of her emotional outbursts can’t seem to pass the Bechdel test. God, Freya would be so disappointed. 

She needs to focus. She didn’t come here to unload on Josie like that, she came here to apologize. She shakes her head and then turns back towards her friend.

“None of that is an excuse, though,” Hope says, taking a step closer and kneeling in front of Josie’s knees. Josie inhales sharply when Hope places her hands on Josie’s own, twisted up in the hem of her sweatshirt in her lap. “I shouldn’t have let all of my bullshit keep me from being a good friend. I’m sorry, Jo. Please forgive me for having shitty double standards and for generally being clueless about friendship.”

Josie is gnawing on her lip and hasn’t looked up from where their hands are tangled together. Finally, her eyes meet Hope’s and slowly she says, “You are pretty clueless about friendship.”

Hope can’t help but grin and squeeze her hands. “I really am,” she quickly agrees. “I don’t deserve your friendship, Josie. It’s been the best thing to happen to me this year.”

“The best thing to happen to you this year?”

“Yes,” Hope squeezes a little harder, desperate for Josie to believe her. She wants her to know this. _Needs_ her to. “The best.”

“It has been pretty great,” Josie admits, her bottom lip finally free from the death grip her teeth had it in. The edges of her lips quirk ever so slightly. 

“Can we please continue it, then?” Hope pleads. “I’ll do anything. Including groveling at your feet apparently,” she says, gesturing to her current position -- literally on her knees for the other girl. Thankfully the joke has a smile pulling at Josie’s lips. 

“I’d like to try to be a better friend, Josie. One that maybe even deserves you. If you’ll let me.”

After a long heart-stopping moment in which Hope is certain she’ll be told to fuck right off for dragging Josie so dramatically up and down the emotional charts, Josie nods. “Okay.” She squeezes Hope’s hands, returning her grip. 

“Okay,” Hope sighs in relief. “I’ll be the best friend you’ve ever had,” she gushes giddily. “And no more secrets. I promise.”

Josie swallows, Hope watching the movement of her throat. “No more secrets,” the brunette echoes.

There are tears in Josie’s eyes right now and Hope has to fight off her own. It’s nice to see that she isn’t the only one worked up here; that Josie is also emotional about all of this. Hope can’t believe she almost fucked this up twice. 

Hope hugs her, then. 

She reaches up and wraps her arms around Josie’s neck. It’s an awkward position to say the least given that she’s still crouching on the floor, straining up while Josie is bent almost double leaning down. But Josie’s squeezing her back just as tightly, so Hope sure as hell isn’t going to complain. 

Not when she’s got her best friend back. 

xx

Hope still feels bad for putting them through the emotional wringer. So, in an effort to make up for it, she brings Josie coffee every day for the next week, until finally Josie grabs Hope by the shoulders and says, “I love coffee, but you are going to go bankrupt if this continues. You’re forgiven. I promise. Now stop this madness.”

Hope blinks. “So you don’t want this coffee?” She shakes the macchiato. It has an extra shot, whipped cream, and those tiny little burnt caramel sprinkles. 

In other words: it’s Josie’s favorite cold-weather drink. And today is definitely cold. Hope had to walk through sleet just to get over here to the library to meet up with Josie.

“Well,” Josie says, eyeing the whipped cream. “You have already purchased it…”

Hope grins. “That’s what I thought. Now scoot over.” She hands the drink to her friend and shoos her along in one continuous motion. “You’re taking up the whole couch with your giraffe legs.”

xx

Hope never realized just how much the last few years with Landon must have changed her until she’s inviting Josie to go with her to get her car’s oil changed. 

Hope has always considered herself an independent person. She’s spent most of her life by herself, at school and at home. She likes to be alone. 

But, apparently somewhere along the way that changed because now she likes to be around people just a little bit more. And by people, she means _her_ people. One of whom happens to be the girl sitting in her passenger seat singing the absolute hell out of some show tunes. 

If this semester is teaching Hope anything, though, it’s that girl friends just really seem to _get_ you. Josie is so understanding and empathetic. There’s never been any awkward disconnect like she initially experienced with Landon. It’s like they’ve known each other forever. 

She’s happy they’ve hit that same stride again. 

It’s more than just that, though. Like the saturation is turned up or something. She doesn’t know what it is, but every interaction with Josie just feels so, so vibrant. 

Maybe it’s the extra estrogen or something. Hope knows that sounds crazy, but seeing Freya and Keelin’s happiness over the years, has always made her wonder. Maybe there’s something at a genetic, hormonal level. 

Hope just feels so much when she is with Josie. Most of that being some form of _good_. 

So of course Hope asks Josie to go on a boring errand with her. When Josie drags her next door to check out the panaderia in the parking lot abutting the auto shop and they discover the best conchas in town she knows it was a good idea to ask her friend to come with. 

Hope can’t believe this is what she has missed out on all of these years by not getting close to other girls. How did it take her until twenty-two to realize just how great it is to have a girl best friend?

xx

It’s only as she straightens and feels a crick in her neck that Hope registers how long she has been bent over her painting. “Fuck,” she mutters, shaking her shoulders out. 

“What?” Josie asks, not looking up from her laptop. 

She’s sitting at Hope’s desk, writing a paper for one of her classes. Hope knows Josie mentioned which one when she first came in and sat down, but all of her classes have such vague and complicated names. Like ‘Transcendentalism and the Transatlantics’ or ‘Magical Realism vs. Virtual Reality.’ Course names in Josie’s program seem to intentionally be confusing and obfuscating. 

“It’s to sound pretentious,” Lizzie had explained at the beginning of the semester when Josie had finished rattling off her schedule and Hope had asked, more than a little bewildered, “so those are all English classes?”

It’s not her fault the Business and History Departments are purposefully straightforward in their course names. There’s little to no confusion regarding what ‘Modern History of the Middle East, WWI to Present’ or ‘Colonial Africa, 1600 to 1850’ or ‘Negotiating and Conflict Resolution’ will be teaching.

Hope has to hand it to them, though. It totally works. Whatever the classes are about, it does sound very intellectual, and Josie does sound incredibly intelligent when she rants about a reading or works through an argument for her paper out loud. 

Sometimes Hope goads Josie into these situations intentionally. She just likes to listen to Josie talk about stuff she’s passionate about. That’s part of being a best friend, Hope has learned: being stoked for whatever your best friend is stoked about. Even when it’s pretentious literary nonsense. 

“I didn’t realize how long we’d been sitting here,” Hope says. She looks around the room for her phone. She can’t see her bedside clock from her easel and it’s been dark since before Josie showed up, but that means pretty much nothing at the beginning of February on the East Coast. “Oh, fuck, it’s almost 2:30.”

“Shit.” Josie looks up, equally surprised. “Is that bad?” 

Hope is the one who has class in the morning, not Josie. Her Wednesdays don’t start until after noon. 

Craning her neck from left to right, forward and backward, Hope says, “Not bad. Just surprising. Usually, Landon starts getting antsy around the hour and a half hour mark.” Her neck pops and she sighs in relief. “I don’t know what time you got here, but it’s been that long and then some. I take it your paper is going well?”

Josie is stretching in Hope’s desk chair and Hope goes to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the word doc on her screen. 

“It’s getting there,” Josie says, leaning back into Hope automatically when she puts her hands on her shoulders, fingers working into the stiff muscles of her back. 

“Do you think you’re ready for bed?” Josie’s boneless under her touch as Hope runs her palms down her arms, squeezing the tops of her biceps. “Or did you want to keep working?”

“I think,” Josie groans as Hope presses into a knot. “That I can’t think when you do that.”

Hope laughs and steps back from Josie, releasing her. “There, now you may do all the thinking that big brain of yours desires.”

“Noooo,” Josie whines, reaching back blindly for Hope’s hands. “Thinking, bad. Massaging, good.”

Hope shakes her head, but lets Josie catch her hands and drag her back into her personal space. Josie drapes Hope’s arms around her shoulders and leans back into her body. Josie’s got one hand on the trackpad, scrolling through her paper, and the other holding Hope’s hands loosely against her collarbone. 

It’s the same kind of mindless act she’s watched Freya and Keelin share and that she’s always been a little envious of. And now, here is Josie wordlessly offering the same. 

Hope knows it’s probably weird that she and Josie can sleep tangled up in each other’s limbs most nights, but that it’s moments like these — soft and quiet — that feels so physically _affectionate_ to her. 

She’s pretty sure it has to do with the ease with which they do it. Something about Josie just drawing this side out from her from the jump last semester. That’s how Hope knew Josie was different, knew it was ok to let her past her defenses. 

Or maybe Hope was more touchy-feely with Josie because she trusted her enough to let her past her defenses. It's a chicken/egg thing, Whichever came first, Hope has already decided she doesn’t care. It doesn’t really matter now. Either way, it’s an intimacy she used to think only Landon was capable of fostering in her. 

If Hope were to stop and think about it, she’d be a little amazed at her luck having found this not once, but twice. First with Landon and now, a few years later, with Josie. A boyfriend and a best friend who both let her be as open and free with her affections as she pleases (which, it turns out, is very). It’s two times as many people as she ever thought she’d be this comfortable with.

Growing up, her only source of physical affection was her mother. Her dad just… No. Not his thing. 

Honestly, she’s surprised he and Freya were even related. He’d always been so distant and cold outside of those rare moments her mom was able to soften him. Saturday mornings after their ‘manicures’ being one such example. But even then, he would mainly direct his attention at her mom. Not at Hope.

She hates to admit it, but that left an impression on her. She wasn’t comfortable showing affection with others. She didn’t think it was something she deserved.

When she and Landon first started dating, she was self-conscious about touching him. Worried she was touching him too much or not enough. It was hard to find the balance in an act she, at the time, felt so awkward doing. She’s clearly gotten over that now with Josie. 

Growth: it’s a beautiful thing, she thinks, standing there, waiting patiently, while Josie quietly holds her hands and finishes saving her work.

xx

Hope is crossing the lobby of the business school when it hits her. Next year she will not be here. In a few months, she’ll walk out of these doors for the last time and might never come back through them again.

The idea settles on her mind like a vise. She stops walking. A student swears behind Hope and swerves around her in the path. 

She goes through the rest of her classes in a daze. Her notes are going to be useless, she realizes when she looks down at the page in her notebook and all she’s done is draw a picture of her favorite spot on campus. There’s an old oak outside this building. It stands on the east side of the business school and she’s sat under it at least once a week for the past five years, eating lunch, drinking coffee, or just breathing between classes. 

She notices the branches of the tree in her picture are full of leaves. Right now, those branches are bare and will be for another month at least. She watched the leaves change and fall last semester. There’s dirty, week-old snow now where the oranges and reds and yellows lay.

When this class ends, she packs up her bag and goes out to stand in it. Even with the branches bare, the area is shaded by the tall wall of the building at her back. It’s freezing, but she doesn’t put her hands in her pockets, just stands, clutching the straps of her backpack and thinks.

Hope’s never thought of herself as overly sentimental. She fled the only home she’d known in leaving New Orleans and moving here for school. When she moved, she didn’t miss the old buildings, the wrought iron terraces, or the drooping live oaks. She missed her aunt’s hand on her shoulder, the sound of dinner with Freya, Keelin, Kohl, and everyone. 

She watches a bird land on the ground amongst the roots and the gray scattering of snow. In a month or two, these branches will be green and lush and there will be squirrels chasing each other, birds chattering to one another. She’ll get to see it. Spring on campus, one last time.

Next Fall she won’t be here. She doesn’t know where exactly she will be, but it won’t be here. She won’t see these leaves change again.

She wonders if Landon felt this last semester before he graduated and moved. He didn’t mention it if he did. He was mostly just excited to start his job, and if he ever exhibited anything less than enthusiasm for the future, it was to mourn the fact she wouldn’t be with him over the next handful of months. 

Maybe Hope’s early-onset nostalgia is because she doesn’t know where she’ll be next year. She graduates in a few months and she hasn’t solidified any plans. She could go to grad school. She’s sat for the LSAT last summer and submitted applications to schools on both coasts. Her advisor has suggested an MBA track if she doesn’t want to pursue law school. 

Landon was excited to graduate because he knew where he was going. He had a job, a plan. She’s part of all of that, too, she knows. The ring on her right hand proves it. But that’s his plan. What is hers? 

The future spreads out before, yawning wide to the horizon and ripe with possibility. She should be excited to graduate -- five years is a long time; she’s been working towards this for five years now -- but instead, she’s standing outside in the cold, looking at this stupid, dormant tree.

Hope doesn’t know a lot about trees, but she can tell this one was planted long before she was even born. The roots that spread out beneath the soil have been here longer than she’s been drawing breath. She’s been sitting out here for five years, but what’s five years in the decades this tree has been growing, stretching. 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. 

It’s Josie. Of course, it is. Hope ignores the missed texts from Landon and Freya and calls her friend back.

Josie picks up on the first ring and her voice sounds so light and sunny when she says hello Hope finds herself falling back against the rough brick behind her. 

“Do you have a sensor on me or something?”

Josie laughs. “What do you mean?”

“Something to alert you when I’m all up in my feels.” She drags the toe of her boot through the dirt. 

“Like a spidey sense, but for bouts of melancholy?”

“Yes. That.”

“If I said yes, would that make my timing more or less impressive?”

“Did you turn in your paper?” Hope redirects.

“I did,” Josie says. Her pleased smile is obvious through the phone. “And now I’m in line for coffee and wondering why my best friend isn’t here like she said she was going to be.”

“Shit, Jo,” Hope curses. “I lost track of time. I’m sorry, I’ll be right over.” She was too busy worrying about missing out next year, she’s already missing out on her time right now. The irony is not lost on her. Real smart, Mikaelson. 

Josie doesn’t even sound bothered, though. “No, no, it’s cool. I’ll come to you?” 

Hope stops moving. “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah. Can’t have you cutting your brooding short on my behalf. You want your usual?”

Hope sighs and tilts her head back against the wall behind her. “Yes, please. I’m out next to the business school. Uh, you know that big tree on the eastern side of the building?”

“The one we sat under last semester? That has that great view of the mall lawn and the fountain?”

“Yeah,” Hope smiles. Of course, Josie remembers. Hope can’t even remember to meet up with her friend on time, but Josie remembers the place they went to once, three times tops.

“I’ll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

Hope laughs at the reference. “I can’t believe I told you that was my favorite movie.”

“I honestly can’t decide if it's better or worse than the 80s films you usually like.”

“Pulp Fiction is a classic!”

“And Quentin Tarantino is a misogynistic ass--”

“--hole who can’t write a movie without Mary Sue-ing himself into the script, yes yes. You said this all last night, now would you please hurry up and bring me my coffee? It is freezing out here. Brooding doesn’t produce nearly the amount of body heat, you’d expect.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming, sheesh.” Josie laughs. “You know you’d think you’d be in a better mood after getting to pick the movie last night.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hope grins, kicking at the dirt again.

“Hey, Hope?”

“Yes, Josie?”

“Three tomatoes are walking down the street--”

“I’m hanging up now, good luck finding your way over here!”

Hope ends the call to the sound of Josie laughing on the other end. She feels her own smile, wide and genuine, spread across her face. It doesn’t drop even as she looks back across the way at the oak tree. Her tree.

She shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat. She doesn’t know what her plan is. But, she decides right then and there, that she really wants a friendship with Josie to be a part of it. 

Josie walks around the corner of the building a few minutes later, her smile so bright Hope wouldn’t be surprised if it kicks Spring off early. “Check out the big broody energy on Brad,” she croons as soon as she gets close enough to not have to shout to be heard.

Hope groans loudly as she takes the coffee Josie offers her. “Can it, flock of seagulls.”

Even if Josie never stops making fun of her taste in movies, Hope won’t mind. Just as long as she sticks around. A future that involves Josie smiling at her like that is the kind of future Hope wants to build. 

Grad school or jobs will fall into place eventually. She’s gotten offers from a few already. She’ll figure it out. What matters is the people Hope gets to take along with her. People like Freya, Landon, Josie. 

She looks up at the bare branches reaching into the white-blue sky as Josie settles in next to her, shoulders pressed together for warmth. She’ll miss this place once she’s gone. But, there will be more places to find and fall in love with.

Maybe ones she will get to share with Josie, even.

xx

For the first four years of their relationship, Hope split her evenings between Landon and herself. Almost perfectly 50-50, even-stevens. She’d spend half of her time with Landon, playing video games at his apartment, having dinner and movie marathons at hers, going on dates out, trying every burger in town. 

The other half of the time she would spend alone. Painting mostly. Sometimes treating herself to gallery openings or hikes in the woods on the outskirts of town. Enjoying coffee and a good playlist at the shop that’s too far from campus for her to risk running into any of her classmates. 

‘Recharging’ her ‘introvert batteries,’ Landon jokingly called it. But that’s how it would feel honestly. Being around others could be draining. Landon understood that. He gave her the space to sink back into her skin and was patient. Once she felt like herself again, an hour or three or two days later, she’d reach out. She’d surprise him with tickets to the midnight showing of some black and white monster flick at the local theater or they’d spend the night not leaving his room.

Then, she met Josie. And everything got a little reshuffled until Hope split her nights pretty evenly between Landon, herself, and Josie. If it fell a little more heavily between the latter two, Landon didn’t complain to Hope. He was busy trying to make the most of his last semester living with his best friend. So Landon had bro-time with Raf and Hope had girls’ nights with Josie. And everyone was happy. 

She didn’t really think about it, but if she had, Hope would have expected that once Landon graduated, her nights would slot back into that easy dynamic of half-on with Josie, half-off by herself. With the occasional skype date with Landon thrown in when his schedule allowed, of course. 

But, as her last semester progresses, that’s not how Hope finds herself spending her time. 

Yes, there are the occasional skype dates with Landon. But the rest of the time, Hope passes with Josie. Even when Josie has a sister dinner or an evening meeting for the Board, Hope manages to talk her into coming over. She’ll show up at Hope’s door already in her pajamas with her backpack full of things for tomorrow’s classes.

Sometimes Josie brings work to do. Other times she brings a bottle of wine and plans to commandeer Hope’s couch for a Parks & Rec marathon. Still others, it's so late they just fall into Hope’s bed and barely have time to say _hellogoodnight_ before they’re passing out. 

Regardless, it’s the same outcome, every time: Hope falling asleep with Josie in her bed next to her. As someone who has always valued her alone-time and independence, it’s a bit of a surprise to find herself texting Josie nine times out of ten to come over. If they don’t already have plans to hang out, that is of course.

What’s even more of a surprise, though, is that Hope’s phalanx of pillows has been all but banished to the basket beside the bed. She doesn’t need them to feel safe and secure anymore, because Josie is always there. All Hope has to do is reach a hand out and feel her friend next to her, warm and comforting and _there_. 

Josie never asks questions when Hope slides closer and tucks herself into the curve of Josie’s body. She just lets Hope take the comfort she obviously needs and doesn’t bring it up later. It’s something Josie’s been doing since last semester. But now that Josie’s basically her only snuggle-source, Hope notices it more. Notices how quick Josie is to step in and offer herself to Hope.

Sometimes at night, after Josie has fallen asleep to the SleepyTime Playlist Hope created just for her, Hope looks at her friend and thinks about this long and hard. Thinks about what it means to be a friend. Or, not just any friend, because it’s obvious Josie isn’t that, but a _best_ friend. 

Hope decides this right here is what being a best friend is all about: being there. Being what the other person needs. And doing it without any expectation of answers or...well, anything, really. 

On nights when Hope’s buzzed off the wine Josie brought over or the pitcher of margaritas they had at dinner, she finds her thoughts straying a little further down that path. Going a little deeper, where the trees are thicker and the shadows are darker and the thoughts that roam here are a little wild, a little scary.

On those nights, she thinks about what separates what she and Josie have from what she and Landon have. There are no expectations with Josie. Save for one of honesty now, of course. She’s not beholden to Josie, except for that, and Josie isn’t beholden to her. They just are. When Josie comes over and joins Hope under the covers, there are no presumptions of any kind on either of their parts. Least of all, physical. 

Hope would never, in any world, classify Landon as pushy or overly physically demanding. But if she were to cuddle up next to him like this, swing her leg over his hips and press into the crook of his neck and play with the collar of his shirt like she likes to do with Josie, she knows it would hint at other physical stuff happening. 

Not that Hope is opposed to said physical stuff. Just. Sometimes, she gets stuck in her own head about it. About the lead-up. The “does he think that’s where this is going?” And the “does he want it to go there?” Sometimes all of that wondering just ruins it for her, so she can’t even enjoy lying next to her boyfriend. Worried that she isn’t doing something perfectly or, at the very least, doing enough to keep him from wondering why he stayed.

There is none of that second-guessing with Josie. Hope doesn’t have to get stuck in her head about where she puts her hand or the way in which she wriggles to get closer. Because unlike with Landon, it can’t lead to anything more. 

With Josie, all of that other physical stuff is totally off the table. Locked up in a box and put away on a high shelf somewhere out of Hope’s reach because that’s not what friends do. At least not when one of the friends has a boyfriend. A boyfriend who wants to marry her one day, Hope amends. 

Regardless. There’s no pressure. There are no assumptions about what this means to be lying alone in bed with one another. Just the softwarm feel of Josie’s body against hers in the dark. 

But without that… There are no promises either. 

Hope can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

Some nights, when it’s late and they should’ve gone to sleep hours ago and Josie finally wraps her arm around Hope after giggling together in the dark for thirty minutes over some stupid meme Josie found on Tumblr, Hope thinks she wouldn’t mind making a promise to Josie. Wouldn’t mind something binding the two of them together. 

It could be nice, she thinks, feeling the rise and fall of Josie’s chest against her own. To have Josie _always_ be there. 

xx

“Do you ever feel like our lives aren’t really our own?” Hope asks as she and Josie walk from the coffee shop to the student union building. 

It's overcast, but the breeze is just this side of Spring. Hope’s scarf is stuffed in her backpack, not wrapped tight around her throat like it has been most every time she steps out of doors since coming back from break. 

“What do you mean?” Josie asks beside her.

“Like,” Hope pauses, tries to figure out how best to phrase her thoughts. “We’re just here to continue our parents’ legacies, their memories?”

“I’m named after my bio mom, Hope,” Josie grins, swerving on the sidewalk to bump their arms together. “What do you think?”

“Okay, fair.”

“I’m literally, like actually literally, not just figuratively literally, a monument to the memory of the woman my dad loved.”

“Jo,” Hope says. “You’re more than that.”

“I know.” Josie shoots Hope a soft smile. “But, you know what I mean. We share a name. No matter what I do, it’s like she’s doing it with me.”

Hope inhales deep. Because yeah, she does know what Josie means, because that’s actually exactly what she feels. Her parents died and now it's on her. Of course, their memory lives on with Freya and the rest of her dad’s siblings, but still… Everyone has their own memories to keep alive. Hope has hers, the ones no one else has. It’s up to her to keep them safe.

“At least you’ll never have to be alone.”

“Yeah, but it also means that when I fail, I drag her down with me.”

Hope stops in the middle of the sidewalk next to the quad and turns to look at Josie head-on. “You’re not going to fail, Josie,” she says firmly with a hand squeezing Josie’s arm.

The grin Josie gives her is a little brittle. “You don’t know that. Neither of us does.”

“Why do you have to be so pragmatic? It really cramps my inspirational speech vibe.”

“Sorry, please continue to tell me how we should shoot for the moon so that when we miss we can land among the stars.”

Hope shakes her head in mock disgust. “That saying doesn’t even make any sense. No, fuck that.” She squeezes Josie’s arm again before dragging her hand down to tangle with Josie’s. “No, what I was going to say was this: If we do fail, we fail together. But not because either of us dragged the other one with them, just because that’s what best friends do. They stick together.”

Josie’s eyes suddenly look so deep. Deeper than Hope expected them to look after her attempt at a joke. Hope’s gaze sweeps across her friend’s face, and yes, just as she expected, Josie’s lip is getting a serious working over by her teeth. 

Hope squeezes Josie’s hand and leans in, desperate to assuage her friend’s anxiety. “Deal?”

Josie pulls herself from whatever dark place she’d just gone and finally nods. “Deal.”

xx

It was an adjustment at first, not having Landon there with her. They started dating freshman year and honestly it was a little hard for Hope to separate the campus from her time with him. But the human mind is incredibly adaptable. She’s always been amazed at what people can get used to.

For instance, Hope has accepted that on Thursdays after class, she is to meet up with Josie, Lizzie, and MG and monopolize the gigantic couch in the basement of the library until it’s time for trivia to begin at the local pub.

Which is exactly why this afternoon she finds herself getting uprooted from her cushion by Lizzie. The blonde shoves her aside to make space for her own butt.

This is something else Hope has gotten used to: Lizzie’s brusque demeanor. When she’d first met Lizzie she thought she was a bitch. Now that they’ve spent some time together, Hope still thinks she’s kind of a bitch, but she also knows this is tempered by fierce love for her sister and boyfriend. Some of which occasionally bleeds over onto just based on her proximity to Josie.

Plus, she has the sometimes problematic, always hilarious habit of saying the most outlandish things with the most deadpan of expressions. Which is what she does right now.

“That’s my emotional support armchair,” she tells a boy who tries to sit down.

“Your wha--”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was a campus that tolerated questioning a woman’s right to choose her own furniture.”

“I, I’m sorry?” the boy splutters.

“Maybe you should just go sit over there,” Hope offers sweetly, pointing in the direction of some other un-Lizzie-infested chairs in the far corner.

He scuttles off and Lizzie rolls her eyes scoffing, “Some people,” haughtily before taking over the area of the couch Hope had just been sitting in.

Hope just raises her eyebrows and repeats, “‘Some people.’”

She moves her laptop so Lizzie can utilize the coffee table, too. Settling into her new spot on the couch, she looks around for MG and Josie. “Where are--”

“Hi, ladies!” MG slides into view holding two coffees. He smiles at Hope then gives Lizzie her drink and a kiss on the temple, before flopping into the armchair Lizzie had just so successfully, if not conventionally, defended. 

Josie sits down on the couch on the other side of Hope. “Hey,” she says, handing Hope her own coffee. 

“You are an angel,” Hope says, intentionally echoing what Josie had told her that first day in class. Judging by the smile Josie gives her in return, she isn’t the only one who remembers. 

The soft moment between the two girls is interrupted by Lizzie moaning _loudly_ on the other end of the couch. 

“God,” Lizzie says into her coffee cup. “Knowing someone’s coffee order is a form of loving someone well. And MG,” she looks up at her boyfriend who looks like he might be blushing. “You love me _so_ well.”

“Oh-kay then,” Josie says after a moment.

A laugh bubbles up unbidden from Hope’s throat. She stifles it behind a hand to her mouth as she looks down at her book. MG is still squirming in his armchair. Out of the corner of her eye, Josie is grinning at her. 

Hope bumps her shoulder against Josie’s. “I guess that means you love me pretty well too, huh?”

“I guess so,” Josie says bumping her back.

xx

Finally, winter comes to a close. Which means a few things. 

One, Hope can put away the extra blanket she had at the foot of her bed. Now that it’s warming up, Josie’s feet won’t get so cold during the middle of the might. 

And two, it’s Spring. Proper Spring, too. With the season change comes a change in weather. Gone are the overcast skies, with chances of snow showers. They’re replaced with blue skies and temperatures that have students reaching for shorts, not scarves. With the beautiful weather, Josie’s role in the student inclusivity board gets more active. 

This semester, Josie’s in charge of coming up with activities. She set up the trivia nights that they all love so much, but really, she’s been biding her time for the weather to cooperate to play her trump card. Once the final frost disappears, she rolls out her plans for a flag football league. 

Apparently, Josie and MG were in charge of their high school's flag team, so she uses all of her old plans and soon enough it’s taking off. MG helps spearhead the campaign with her, which no doubt helps. With him comes a large number of the actual football team, and of course, the rest of their friend group pledges to play. 

So, before they know it, the league is up and running.

Hope should be working on her senior projects, but she agrees to join, too. Not that she had much of a choice in the matter, she acknowledges. Josie only had to pout in her general direction _once_ and she was in. She’s not gonna miss out on an excuse to help Josie. Or to just spend time with her best friend when everything feels so fleeting. 

xx

Early on in the process, Hope volunteers her car to help ferry stuff to and from the fields. It’s the least she can do, given how much work Josie has already put into the whole endeavor. Besides, she’s going to be there every Tuesday and Saturday anyway. Might as well help out. 

“Hope,” Josie says that first Tuesday afternoon when Hope hits the button on her key fob that triggers the auto-open of her cargo door. “This trunk has more space than my freshman dorm.”

Hope just laughs, because she remembers her Freshman year dorm and Josie is probably not wrong. They shove everything in with room to spare even for their muddy shoes.

“Hope has the trunk space a kidnapper could only dream of having access to,” Josie announces when they come back inside the apartment for Hope to paint Josie’s nails. 

Today’s color is a nice royal blue that matches their uniform shorts. Hope did her own the same color before coming over to Josie’s. A trickle of pride runs through her at the fact that they’ll be matching. 

Hope rolls her eyes and pushes Josie down into her seat. “I think I’m gonna cut you off from those true crime podcasts. They’re getting to you.”

She’s just putting the cap on the polish when Lizzie pops her head into the kitchen. 

“Hey, Ted Bundy, can you do mine too?” She asks, holding up a yellow nail polish that is the exact shade of sunshine their jerseys are. 

“Sure,” Hope smiles, patting the spot at the table on the other side of her. “Let’s see if we can paint your nails before I flee the state to avoid arrest.”

xx

The only bad thing about flag football is Penelope.

It turns out, Penelope is on the board with Josie. Hope doesn’t say anything the first couple of times she sees them together. She’s trying to be less controlling when it comes to Josie’s dating life, but it’s Penelope _fucking_ Park. Every time she sees the girl with her hand on Josie, Hope feels like battery acid is eating away at her stomach and taking her self-control with it. 

Hope promises herself that if anyone else on this goddamn campus was giving Josie not-so-subtle looks, she’d stay out. This has to do with Penelope. Not the fact that Hope doesn’t think any of these dummies are good enough for Josie. 

She makes it through one and a half game-days before she caves and brings it up with Josie. It's one and a half longer than she would have liked if she is being honest with herself.

“So, I noticed you and Penelope Park talking,” Hope says at halftime. They’re standing at the water station, with their teammates gathered around them, so Hope is aiming for casual. Just a light and breezy conversation. Not at all like her freak out in December.

“Oh!” Josie turns to her, surprise written all over her face as she takes the water bottle Hope hands her. “You know Penelope?”

“A little,” Hope admits. “We went to high school together,” she adds after a second when Josie doesn’t say anything. 

“Wait, really?” Josie laughs like that’s the craziest coincidence in the world.

“Yeah, uh…” Hope clears her throat. “Be careful. She has a bit of a reputation.”

“A reputation…?” Josie says slowly. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion and her mouth turns down in a cute pout.

“For being a bit of a player.”

“Oh!” Josie laughs. “Yeah, I actually knew that already.”

Now it’s Hope’s turn to be confused. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Josie says easily. “She and I dated freshman year. Found that out the hard way.” She says the last sentence with a little chuckle, but its implication still has Hope’s jaw clenching.

“Oh,” she says.

Josie must see the steam coming out of her ears. “No, no,” Josie says quickly. “It’s all good. That was ages ago. We were both just dumb kids.” 

She places her hand on Hope’s arm, right where the sleeve of her jersey ends. Hope finds herself relaxing at the touch, despite herself. 

But then, she thinks about all of the scenarios that Josie could have ‘found out the hard way’ about Penelope not being a one-woman kinda woman, and sees red.

“I’ll kill her,” she promises darkly, eyes already shooting daggers at the dark-haired girl across the field. 

Josie just laughs like Hope offering to avenge her honor is the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “Not that I don’t appreciate the protectiveness,” she says, still laughing. “But you’d have to go on quite the killing spree if you were gonna go after every asshole I’ve dated in my life.”

“Well. I’d do it for you.” Then she adds, “Plus, like you said last week: my trunk is kind of perfect for bodies.” 

“It is!” Josie laughs all over again, the sound falling like water on Hope’s burning rage.

xx

Hope still watches Penelope like a hawk. She doesn’t like that this girl who treated Josie badly is still somehow allowed to be close to her.

Josie’s a big girl and can take care of herself, but there’s something about her that has Hope’s protective streak activating at full-strength. Hope’s pretty sure it’s because the other girl looks like Bambi in human girl form.

Finally, after Penelope has spent the whole afternoon smarmily coming onto Josie, Hope snaps. 

She waits until Josie has been pulled away to talk to the referee crew then she stalks over to her old high school classmate.

“Leave Josie alone.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Hope says, stepping closer. “Leave. Her. Alone. She’s too good for you so take your skanky paws and back off.”

“Wow,” Penelope says. “Didn’t know Josie adopted a new guard dog. All just to protect her from little old me? I’m flattered.”

“Josie doesn’t need protection. She can take care of herself. I’m just letting you know that I’m not quite as understanding as she is.”

“Oooh, the overprotective girlfriend speech. How original. Should I start shaking in my boots now or did you have more planned?”

Hope growls, “Listen-“

“Tell me. Does she know you’re over here doing this?”

This has Hope pulling to a stop. 

“That’s what I thought. I also thought Josie mentioned that you have a boyfriend. Or did he get tired of playing second fiddle to your bosom buddy over there?”

“I do--”

“That grungy Nirvana-wannabe you’ve been dating since freshman year?” At Hope’s screwed up face, Penelope smirks. “Yeah, that’s right, you’re not the only one keeping track of old friends.”

“You and I were never friends.”

“Certainly not like you and _Josie_ are friends.”

Hope levels her with a glare. She doesn’t like where this is going. Doesn’t like what Penelope is implying. She and Josie _are_ friends, but it's obvious Penelope was suggesting something else. Hope doesn't appreciate anyone saying anything negative about her and Josie, let alone Penelope goddamn Park.

“Listen, Hope,” she smarms. “I know emotional repression is your jam, but here’s a little tip from me to you: you’d better chill the fuck out on this twisted closet crush you have on Josie before that boyfriend of yours finds out you’re fucking your best friend.”

“We’re not—“ Hope splutters. “Josie is my _friend_. Maybe you're unfamiliar with the concept but some of us can care about someone without wanting to fuck them, Park.”

Penelope leans in close. “You sure about that?”

Then she’s gone as if in a puff of smoke and Hope is left wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have done this. This is why she usually steers clear of people. Especially girls like Penelope Park.

xx

“What did Satan’s Mistress want?” Lizzie asks when Hope storms back to where she and MG are sprawling in the shade, guarding the equipment. 

“She seems to be under the impression that Josie and I are sleeping together.”

“Well,” Lizzie says, far too calmly for Hope’s taste. “You kind of are, aren’t you?”

“No,” Hope fake smiles at the blonde, all crinkled eyes and fuck-you head tilt. “I mean she thinks I’m fucking your sister behind Landon’s back.” 

Lizzie’s eyes go big as saucers. She sits up so fast Hope wouldn’t be surprised if she pulled something. There’s the reaction Hope has been looking for. Finally, she seems to understand the-- 

“Are you?!” Lizzie asks agape.

“Oh, for fucksake,” Hope stomps her foot. “No, of course not! I would never do something like that to Landon!”

Lizzie’s eyes narrow. “But you would fuck my sister…?”

“Lizzie!” Hope screeches. “What the fuck!”

“Hey I’m just trying to get my facts straight before I get upset with you,” Lizzie shrugs. “I just need to know which part we’re upset about exactly.”

Hope has never wanted to strangle another person more than she does right now. She thought the actual conversation with Penelope was bad, but this is next level. “ _All of it!”_

“Ok, ok, fine,” Lizzie holds up her hands in surrender, then switches to her scary screaming voice in the same second. “FUCK HER, THEN. FOR SAYING ALL OF IT.”

Hope flings a hand up in the air. Finally. “Thank you!”

xx

Hope is still seething about the encounter with that, that _witch_ days later. 

Penelope was just talking bullshit. Hope’s feelings for Josie have nothing to do with wanting to get in her pants or not. She cares about Josie because she’s amazing, not because she can rock the hell out of a crop top or because she has the softest looking pair of lips Hope’s seen this side of a screen.

As if to prove her point, Josie appears at Hope’s table in the library with an iced coffee and a scone. Hope’s favorite. 

Josie drops the food and beverage of the gods off, squeezes Hope’s shoulder, motioning to her headphones and making talking motions with her hand, and then steps back out into the busy lobby to finish her call with her dad.

Hope all but falls upon the coffee and pastry. She could kiss Josie for bringing them. 

See! This has absolutely nothing to do with Josie’s body or sex appeal and everything to do with how thoughtful and sweet she is! 

Wait, what.

She takes a big gulp of the coffee Josie brought her. Caffeine withdrawal is obviously getting to her. 

Plus, she’s always a little out of it this time of year. The anniversary is coming up and it has a habit of fucking with her head. Granted it’s usually by shading everything with a thick coating of bottomless black, not twisting her thoughts in a… 

Well, in an unusual way such as this. 

She shakes her head and drinks more coffee, nearly giving herself a brain freeze in the process. She knows firsthand how fickle grief is. This is probably nothing to be worried about. Just some strange new strain, brought on by the stress of her last semester of college coupled with the worst date of the year coming up. Nothing more.

Josie swings back into view. She's no longer on the phone which means the full brunt of her attention is on Hope as she smiles hello for real this time. Hope gulps her coffee down faster.

Yeah, she assures herself as the coffee kicks in and her hands start to sweat and her heart rate picks up speed from this incredibly fast-acting caffeine. Probably nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just to be suuuper clear: yes, there is another chapter, no, it is not a time jump, yes, it will still be in Hope's POV haha
> 
> let me know what you guys think about our fave broody lil repressed lady, though!


	4. Part II, Act 2 - Spring Semester, Second Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \-- Hope's POV --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao, can y'all believe the first iteration of this story was one semester, like 15k words, and only Josie's POV? these bitches really played us, huh

With some effort, Hope shoves the interaction with Penelope into the far corner of her mind. She leaves it to gather dust and hopefully eventually be forgotten like her high school locker combo and why she ever found the pre-revival-Jonas Brothers attractive.

She has enough on her plate without looking for more problems like misconstruing things with her best friend.

Things are hard enough as is. Her friendship with Josie like the one constant shining light -- even when talking with Landon doesn't make her smile like it used to. Why should she go digging around and risk upsetting that all over a few errant thoughts?

xx

“Hope?”

She turns to look back at Josie standing in the dark doorway. “Hey,” Hope says quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Funny, I came out here to ask you the same thing.”

‘Out here’ being Hope’s balcony at two in the morning. Or at least that’s what time the clock on the microwave said when she passed it earlier. Hope has no idea how long it’s been since then, though.

Usually, when she can't sleep she paints. But when she had picked up her oils yesterday, the smell had flung her back fifteen years to sneaking peaks into her father's studio simultaneously praying he doesn't catch her and hoping he does because then he'd at least acknowledge her. She'd slammed the lids closed and shoved all of the tubes into the laundry closet. Tonight, she had tried something different.

“I’m fine,” Hope says, turning to look back up at the moon, a vibrant streak of white now hanging considerably closer to the tree than it was when she first sat down. “Just… Thinking.”

Josie hums where she’s leaning in the doorway, arms wrapped around herself. Hope snagged a hoodie before coming out, but Josie is still in just her pajama shorts and sleep tee. “Mind if I join you for said thinking?”

“Mi balcony es su balcony.”

Reaching back into the apartment, Josie snags a throw from the back of the couch, then sits in the wicker chair closest to the door. She settles into the chair and props her feet on the railing in front of them, mirroring Hope’s position on the other side of the patio table.

“You want any of this?” She asks Hope, holding up one corner of the blanket.

“Nah, I’m good,” Hope answers, smiling when Josie wraps herself up like a burrito in response.

Head tilting to rest against the chair back, Hope returns her gaze to the sky, her eyes inexorably drawn to the moon. No matter where she starts out looking, inevitably the brightness calls to her. It’s only a quarter (maybe?) full tonight, but it’s no less hypnotizing.

Maybe that’s because it looks like there are two of them. A double-moon. The real and the after-image. Or are they both real depending on which eye you or close or angle you look at them? It’s been a long time since 10th grade astronomy and the particulars of parallax (she thinks that has to do with this) are a little fuzzy. 

She doesn’t need to know the science behind it to enjoy it, though. Landon had tried to explain it to her once, and she’d kindly shushed him. She prefers to keep a little romance for herself. Not that she told him any of this, that is. He’d probably think she was silly. No, no, these quiet thoughts are just for her. 

Because Hope likes to imagine one image is the real moon and the other the memory of it. Side-by-side up there like a shadow. One trailing the other across the sky every night. The thing that always interests Hope though is this: Which one is leading and which one is following?

The anniversary of her parents’ car crash is next week. Hope feels it looming on the horizon like a physical presence. Sometimes Hope can’t tell if the memory of her parents or the reality of them being gone is what’s guiding her through this time of the year. Any point in the year, actually. 

They’re inseparable (the image and the after-image), so maybe she should stop wasting her time thinking about it. Maybe she should just learn to look at the fucking moon and enjoy its beauty rather than twist it into something macabre.

Maybe.

But that seems about as likely as separating the moon from its shadow. 

“You want to talk about it?” Josie asks softly after Hope travels down that particular rabbit hole a ways. It’s more a rabbit warren these days, and Hope is almost relieved when Josie pulls her from its twisty passages.

She breathes in the cool night air, letting the cold in her lungs ground her. “Not tonight,” Hope says just as softly. She rolls her head to the side to look at Josie, meets the brown eyes already looking at her. “But soon.”

“Okay.” Josie nods, her acceptance so easy and patient and perfect, Hope is reaching a hand out across the woven-wire table between them. 

It takes Josie a second to wiggle an arm free from her blanket cocoon, but she does so without hesitation. Josie rests her warm hand in Hope’s. The pads of her fingers skate across Hope’s palm then wrist, then twist, turn, and finally, her fingers settle intertwined with Hope’s.

They sit like that, both looking up at the moon as it slowly slips behind the black silhouette of the tree, until Hope feels Josie’s fingers turn icy in the night chill. 

Then Hope’s tugging the other girl out of her chair and back into the dark apartment. Their eyes have long adjusted to the dark, so Hope doesn’t need to turn on any lights as she leads them back to her room. 

When they get back in bed, the throw blanket Josie had been holding around her shoulders deposited on the floor somewhere, and Josie scooches over and wraps an arm around Hope, her grip is a little tighter than normal. Held close like this, all of Hope’s dark thoughts and lunar comparisons seem as distant as the moon itself. 

xx

‘Soon’ turns out to be the next afternoon. 

Josie and Hope are in the grocery store parking lot putting Hope’s cargo space to use with the millions of snacks and boxes of brownie mix they just bought. Hope closes the overhead cargo door and stops. She doesn’t move, one hand on the door.

She and Josie had been discussing the merits of Hope getting a university alumni license plate frame or a decal of some sort once she graduates. Inside, Hope had been the one to jokingly pick up a “My child and paycheck go to UVA” bumper sticker. 

Inside it had been just a joke because truthfully most of her future paychecks will still be coming here. But now, outside, she’s standing out by her car imagining that sticker on a different bumper. 

A bumper that was totaled before Hope was even accepted to college or graduated high school. There’s just so much her parents have missed out on. And this year, her earning her Bachelor's degree is merely one on a long list stretching out in front of her.

The tears are falling before she even knows it’s happening. She sucks out a sob and Josie drops the bag of eggs she’d been holding and pulls Hope into a hug.

“Shit,” Hope sniffles. She doesn’t know if the expletive is more for the carton that hits the pavement with a dozen sad little cracks or the dozen sad little cracks inside of her.

Josie just brushes her hair away from her face and shushes her. She moves so quickly and so automatically like she’d been expecting Hope to have a breakdown eventually and the parking lot of the supermarket is as good of a place for it to occur as anywhere. 

“Hey, hey,” she soothes, keeping Hope’s face tucked securely into the dip of her shoulder. “There ya go, babe. Just let it out.”

Hope notices distantly that Josie never says ‘it’s okay’ or any of the common throwaway platitudes. Hope appreciates that. Because it’s pretty obvious it _isn’t_ okay if the way she’s getting eye makeup on Josie’s shirt is anything to go by.

Hope just slumps into Josie and Josie just lets her. Eventually, when Hope can stand on her own, Josie takes her car keys and gently folds her into the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing out of her mouth other than broken breaths. 

“Hope,” Josie laughs without humor. “You don’t ever need to apologize for _feeling_ things.”

Hope leans her head back against the headrest and looks at the headliner. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. But you should also know you seriously don’t need to apologize for _crying_.”

“What about when my crying causes us to waste twelve perfectly good eggs?”

“Technically, that was my fault.”

Hope huffs out a broken laugh and Josie waits silently next to her. She doesn’t make a move to start the car. She seems perfectly content to sit here with Hope while she gathers up her pieces.

“You know how I mentioned before that…” She closes her eyes. “That my parents died in a car crash?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Hope opens her eyes and tilts her head back down to look unseeingly out the windshield. “Tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of that.”

Distantly, she hears Josie suck in a breath next to her. “ _Shit_.”

“You can say that again,” Hope smiles humorlessly.

So Josie does. “Shit,” she says.

They sit there in silence before Hope sits up a little straighter and says, “I’m gonna go clean up the eggs.”

“Oh, hold on, you don’t have to do that, I can--”

“No,” Hope says, hand on Josie’s arm to keep her from getting out of the car. “I need to go do it. Please.”

“Okay,” Josie accepts and sits back fully in her seat.

Hope steps outside counts out ten breaths, then goes and picks up the messy carton and tosses it in the nearby trashcan next to the cart return.

When she opens the door Josie is on the phone with Lizzie. 

“Yes, I understand you’re comfortable on the couch, but this is the most important thing I will ask of you this year, Lizzie.” 

A beat as Lizzie says something on her end of the call. 

“I am not talking about that right now, Lizzie,” she says a little too quickly, cutting her eyes over to Hope like she is worried she might have heard whatever Lizzie said on the other end of the phone.

“Ok, thank you, was that really so hard? No-- No, don’t answer that. Ok, yes, yes. I’ll see you in a bit, thank you.” She hangs up, rolling her eyes.

“Good news and bad news.” Josie says to Hope, reaching for her seatbelt. “Good news: Lizzie says we have eggs at our apartment. So we can still make brownies without having to go back inside the store right now.”

“And the bad news?”

“She says she will trade us the eggs for a pan of brownies.”

Hope puts her seatbelt on, too. “I accept her terms and conditions.”

xx

That night, after they’ve made and eaten almost an entire pan of brownies and are setting aside Lizzie’s pan for later payment, Josie says, “So.”

“So?” Hope repeats, one eyebrow raised at the studied nonchalance of Josie’s tone.

“Soooo,” she says closing the dishwasher and leaning against it. “Lizzie, my dad, and I do this thing every year on the anniversary of our biomom’s death where we do something that she loved to do and we do it in her honor.”

Hope leans against the counter across from Josie. “That sounds nice.”

“It actually really is. Which is why… I figured maybe we could do the same thing?” At Hope’s conflicted expression Josie reaches out and says, “Just think about it. We don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course. But. If you want to… I think it could be-- I think it could be good.” She squeezes Hope’s hand. “Just think about it, okay?”

xx

The next morning finds Josie and Hope brushing their teeth in Hope’s bathroom. Hope leans forward to spit and when she straightens she says, “My mom really liked flowers.”

“Flowers?” Josie asks around her toothbrush. A little toothpaste dribbles down her chin and she leans over to spit. “As in bouquets or gardens?”

“Both?” Hope wipes her face with the hand towel and holds it out to Josie. Josie takes it but doesn’t press it to her own mouth. She just lays it on the counter and waits, listening carefully as Hope continues. “She kept a garden out back and would bring bouquets in from it and set the dinner table with them.”

“Okay,” Josie nods thoughtfully. “Okay, that we can work with.”

Then she spins around and leaves the bathroom, wiping the water off her chin with the back of her hand. Hope trails behind her into the living room where she has pulled her laptop out of her backpack.

The look on Josie’s face is one usually reserved for outlining a research paper. “What’s happening?” 

“Do you have anything due today in any of your classes?” Josie asks without looking up. “You had that pop quiz in Small Biz Finance on Monday, so they’ll probably be chill today right?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Great. Then, email your professors,” she says, flipping the laptop around so Hope can presumably log into her email and do just that. “We’re taking a mental health day.”

xx

Twenty minutes later, Josie is dragging Hope out to her car. “There’s a really pretty arboretum in Richmond. Should only take us like an hour and a half to get there since it’s past rush hour.”

Hope stops, hand on the passenger side door of Josie’s car. “You’re serious?” She looks at Josie across the roof of the car.

“Unless you don’t want me to be.”

Hope thinks. She opens her door. “No. Let's go.”

The soft smile she gets from Josie convinces her she made the right choice.

xx

The botanical gardens are just as beautiful as Josie promised. And they could not have chosen a better time of the year to go. Everything is in bloom. They walk through garden after garden of vibrantly colored flowers and lush greenery.

Hope only cries once. Josie takes her hand and they sit on a park bench in the middle of the hellebores and pig squeaks (Josie had squealed at that last name). Josie sits beside her, warm and _there_ , content to just let Hope sit and be in this beautiful place that Hope knows her mother would have loved to have visited with her. 

Hope leans into the taller girl, their hands clasped on Hope’s lap. Neither of them says anything. 

xx

Afterward, once the sun reaches its zenith and Hope's growling stomach informs them it's lunchtime, Josie takes her to a nearby diner she and MG apparently found on a previous trip. 

It’s dingy inside, the formica tables from another century and the wallpaper greyed from years of customers smoking indoors. But the waitress is named Rose Sharon and calls them “honey” in her gravelly voice when she takes their drink order. And. Most important of all: she brings them the best biscuits Hope may have ever had outside of the state of Louisiana.

“Holy shit,” Hope says after biting into one at Josie’s urging.

Josie grins across the table. “I know. Here, try it with this jam.”

“I repeat: holy shit.”

It’s cash-only, but Josie has apparently thought of everything and pulls out a twenty from her purse to pay. 

“I always keep cash just in case,” she says, waving away Hope’s protests.

Hope sinks back into the cracked vinyl booth as Rose Sharon takes the cash and their bill. “Is it like your biscuit emergency money?” Hope asks, debating whether or not to stuff a few of said biscuits into her purse.

“Can you blame me? Imagine if we’d driven all the way up here and _didn’t_ get to eat these.” Josie shudders dramatically.

“I'd rather not entertain such horrible thoughts.” Hope reaches out and takes another bite of biscuit, to hell with being so full she may burst. 

They sip the last of their coffee and Josie looks out the window, voice casual as she says, “You know, there’s a really great art museum a few blocks from here.”

Hope’s hands still, her mug halfway to her lips. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Josie looks at her, quick and meaningful. “It doesn’t close for another couple of hours.”

Hope looks into the middle distance, thinking about the idea. Weighing it in her mind. The arboretum was for her mother. Does she want to do something for her father today, too? 

She lets her gaze focus back on Josie. Her brown eyes are warm and so open. Hope sees she’s chewing her bottom lip like she’s nervous she might have just said the wrong thing. Like she may have just ruined Hope’s emotion-filled day by suggesting another stop. 

It's absurd for Hope to think about, absurd for _Josie_ to be worried about. Hope has to look away. Otherwise, she may cry in this dirty old diner. Sometimes it’s crazy how much she feels for Josie. How much Josie obviously feels for her. You don’t just cut class and drive three hours roundtrip for just anyone. 

Hope looks back at the coffee in her mug and nods. “Okay,” she says and can hear the tiny exhale Josie lets out in relief. “Let’s go.”

xx

She doesn’t cry in the museum. But, she does feel… She does feel. 

Hope stands in front of a Turner and thinks about her father. Her dad. The man her mother married and had her with.

He didn’t teach her to paint, but she doesn’t honestly believe it would be what it is to her today if it wasn’t his most defining feature.

“They met in a gallery,” she says. “My parents.”

“I know,” Josie says quietly. 

Hope had told her that last semester at some point. She doesn’t even remember what the context was. Josie just always seems to be on the receiving end of Hope’s stories. Something about the way her eyes go soft when she listens to Hope talk. 

Hope hasn’t told her everything about her father, yet. Hasn’t told her about how his drinking got worse and he got angrier at the end when his paintings stopped selling. How he scared her. But she knows Josie has caught on to the tension all the same. The way that all of Hope’s good memories feature her mom as the main character, her dad just a third-party at best.

Hope hasn’t told Josie everything, but she thinks, she thinks she wants to eventually. Even the painful bits she’s held back. 

Not today, though, Hope decides as she looks at the way the movement rough sea spray has been captured in white and ice gray paint against the prow of the boat. That’s not what today is about. She hooks her arm through Josie’s and leans into the taller girl's shoulder. Today is about the good things. 

Right now, standing next to her best friend, her favorite person in the world, looking at a beautiful painting and still full of roughly twenty biscuits, she feels the goodness all around her. 

xx

They’re halfway home, stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere Virginia filling up Josie’s car. It has been a long day and Hope watches Josie stifle a yawn as she leans back against the door of the car. The sun has long since set. There are bugs buzzing around the bright overhead lights in the parking lot and the tank is taking forever to fill up, the numbers just barely ticking by on the readout. Hope steps over the hose and hugs Josie hard. 

“Thank you,” she says against the collar of Josie’s denim jacket.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Josie says, hugging her back immediately, arms around her shoulders just as firmly as Hope’s are around her ribs. 

“You didn’t _need_ to do any of today.”

Josie lets her silence tell Hope what she thinks about that statement.

“I love you,” Hope says, squeezing Josie’s ribs that much tighter. “You know that, right?”

She can hear the catch in Josie’s throat, can feel her swallow against her cheek, before Josie says, “I love you, too.”

They stand there, wrapped around each other until the nozzle clicks off. Hope’s never been so thankful for a slow gas pump in her life.

xx

Latert, after they make it back to campus and finally fall into Hope’s bed, Hope is the one reaching out and wrapping an arm around Josie’s slim waist. 

It feels important to Hope to do this. Josie gives her so much. Hope thinks it might be time to start reciprocating.

So, Hope holds Josie and Josie lets her. And as they’re drifting off, Hope already on the cusp of consciousness, she hears Josie say, “I think I’ll always love you,'' so, so starlightsoft it feels like a dream. 

And maybe, truthfully, it is a dream. Hope can’t tell. Because the way Josie says it -- so inevitable and breathed out on an exhale -- sounds too good to be true.

xx

It seems so obvious. She has no idea how she hasn't said it sooner. 

Of course, Hope loves Josie. 

Josie, who brings Hope coffee or a sweatshirt from her apartment, when Hope is caffeine-deprived or cold on campus. Josie, who gets so worked up over the writings of dead men and women for her classes. Josie who teases her mercilessly about her bad taste in cinema and yet still hands her the remote to pick for movie night. Josie, who lets Hope fall asleep snuggled up tight to her each night. Josie, Josie, Josie. 

There has been a warmth swelling in Hope’s chest since the day they met. Now that she has a word for it, it’s impossible to ignore. 

It’s like a dam has been opened now. She finds the words on the tip of her tongue every time they interact. Every time she says goodbye or goodnight or Josie gets this particular soft look in her eye, the words press against the back of Hope’s teeth. 

But Hope doesn’t want to freak her friend out. So, she bites her tongue and tries to limit herself to once a day. Maybe twice if Josie does something particularly endearing. Which is most days, Hope finds. Her friend is just so goddamn loveable.

xx

Towards the end of April, their schedules finally line up and Hope buys tickets and spends the weekend visiting Landon. She can’t believe it’s been four, almost five months since she’s last seen him _not_ through a screen. 

She’s been keeping track of the three hour time difference between campus and here all semester, but it’s still strange to experience it in person. Even with the layover, the whole trip still has her stepping off the plane in Oregon only two hours after leaving Virginia. But even without that, she can see for herself what Landon has mentioned before: it stays light so much later here. It's surreal.

But, even in this surreal setting, Landon is still Landon. He’s wearing a flannel just like always. Granted, so is most everyone else, but still. When she hugs him and feels the familiar fabric under her hands, against her cheek, it settles her a little, even if his chest does seem broader than she remembered. 

He pulls back and holds her right hand up and kisses the ring he placed there in January. The action has guilt immediately washing through Hope. Somedays, she forgets it's even there. Just another of the rings she wears. But, of course, it's the second thing Landon addresses. She really doesn't deserve him.

The car he picks her up from the airport in is one that she’s only seen in photos, but the music he plays is still mostly familiar. It’s different from what she’s been listening to for the last few months -- Landon has always had a very particular taste in music, but it's still him. 

He doesn’t stop talking the entire drive back to his apartment. He has a million things to tell her, excitement and maybe some nerves, greasing his conversational mechanics, and they all come gushing out now that she’s here next to him.

She smiles and lets it all wash over her as they drive down an unfamiliar highway. Occasionally she asks a question, but he doesn’t need much provocation. She can tell how happy he is to see her by the fact that every few sentences, his eyes turn from the road to her in the passenger seat.

“Eyes on the road, babe,” she laughs after the twentieth time he looks over.

He does as told. There's a grin on his face, crinkling his eyes in that way she has always loved. “I just, I’m just so excited you’re here." 

“Well, I’ll still be here when we get to your apartment, so relax.” She squeezes his square hand (was it always this blocky and she just didn’t realize?), smoothes the dark hair on his wrists, and lets him know she understands the sentiment.

She’s excited too. It fills her stomach with nerves she hasn’t felt since their first year together. She’s anxious for them to fall back into the groove of being together. She knows the unfamiliar surroundings are partly to blame as well. Wild beauty surrounds them and she’s excited to experience it, but for now, she’s finding it hard to connect. 

She looks over at Landon as he rattles off another story about work -- a family he knew from high school got some bad press -- and she thinks he must feel it too. This slight disconnect, like a door not quite fitting in its jamb. Either the foundation has settled or the wood is swollen from humidity, but either way, what once lay flush now is just slightly wonky. 

She tries to not let this concern her.

This is the longest they’ve been apart, and Landon has been living a totally different Real Adult life almost three thousand miles away. Of course, there will be a little effort as they slide back together. She’s sure they’ll have it figured out in no time, though.

So, she lets Landon fill the space between them with his words and holds tight to his hand to let him know she’s still here. She isn’t going anywhere for the next couple of days.

xx

He’s got the whole weekend planned out, hiking tomorrow, then a visit to his office on Sunday before taking her back to the airport. And in between, he seems determined to take her to every burger and beer place just like they used to do at school.

He takes her straight to dinner that night and has her try several local beers, laughing as she turns her nose up at the wilder IPAs before getting her a more relaxed blonde like he knows she actually wants. He still douses the fries in too much ketchup and manages to get his hamburger everywhere and everything that she notices that hasn’t changed about him has a complicated feeling growing in her chest, just under her breastbone. 

Landon is still Landon, even four months and fifteen states and three time zones removed from college. This is still the boy she met freshman year and fell in love with. He’s got a real job now, and has kept his hair cut shorter than she’s used to, but he hasn’t changed that much. His smile is still the same and his eyes are still deep enough for Hope to fall into if she wants to.

And she wants to. That’s the whole reason she is even here. She wants to fall back into this, into _them._ But something deep deep down seems to be stopping her. 

If Landon hasn’t changed… Does that mean she has?

xx

It's only after dinner when they’re walking into his apartment that she feels like she can take a second to just relax in his presence. He lets her pull him into a long hug. She decides that maybe part of her issue is because they just haven’t had a moment in private yet to just physically be in each other’s spaces. She's gotten used to sharing her personal space with only Josie over the last several months. She needs to get back into the hang of sharing it with Landon, too.

His apartment is messier than the one he kept at school, but she doesn’t think about that. She tries not to think about anything, actually. She just tilts her head back and kisses him. She tries to shut her mind off, to silence the disquiet, and just sink into the feeling of his lips against her own, his body against her own, his hands on her sides and in her hair. 

Sink into the feeling of _him_ , the boyfriend who loves her in this way undoubtedly.

xx

Afterward, she goes to the bathroom and looks hard at herself in the mirror. She leans on the counter and gets close enough to the glass her breath fogs the reflection. 

Landon is already asleep. She’d waited until his breaths had evened out before sliding from under an arm that had felt heavier than she had remembered and slipping out of his dark bedroom. 

She doesn’t feel right. 

She had hoped that after sleeping together she’d feel more like herself. Or rather, more like herself with Landon. That being close to him like that, just the two of them between sheets she remembers him picking out in Target in junior year, would settle her. 

It hadn’t felt bad, the sex. Landon was as attentive and appreciative of her as always. She thinks back on it, examines every moment, his stubble on her chest, the way he said her name, and none of it feels _different_ to how it used to be. 

If anything, _she_ was the one who had been different. She’d been impatient, pushy even, in an effort to prise herself from her own head. It had not been an enjoyable experience for her to say the least.

Making eye contact with her reflection in the mirror, she focuses her gaze. Her eyes look scared even now. Is she sabotaging herself with her own eagerness to get this right? Or is it… Something else. 

Whatever it is, she needs to cut it out. Landon seems so excited for their time together and she needs to just get over herself and enjoy it. It will come -- that feeling of slipping into a favorite sweater that she’s always associated with Landon will come if she just lets it.

She’s always standing in her own way, damnit. 

She’s about to turn around and go back to bed when her gaze passes over the empty hand towel ring. She rolls her eyes. Typical boy behavior, never a hand towel to be found. But it gives her an idea.

She snaps a picture, careful to not get the reflection of her naked body in the mirror in the background, and sends it to Josie. 

_made me think of you._

It’s been a while since they’ve done this, this stupid inside joke. And for a fleeting moment, Hope is worried Josie won’t remember. That she’ll have forgotten this inconsequential thing they used to do. Then, Hope squashes the idea ll together, annoyed with herself for getting upset over this, too. This weekend is supposed to be a happy experience, but she’s stuck in her feelings as per usual. 

She gives herself a shake and goes back to bed. It takes her a second to find her charger in her bag. Then she’s plugging in her phone, laying it face down on the floor next to the bed, because Landon hasn’t gotten around to fully furnishing his room and there’s only a nightstand on his side. She slides into bed next to him. Not quite cuddled up but close enough to feel his body heat. She wishes he had an extra pillow for her to hug to her chest like she used to do when he and she would share a bed. It takes her a while, but eventually, she falls asleep.

xx

There's no coffee for breakfast in the morning, just Landon sheepishly telling her he forgot to grab some when he was at the store. 

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” Hope groans, looking over his shoulder at the bare spot in the cupboard where she assumes the coffee should be.

Landon visibly wilts.

Before he can apologize though, Hope tosses a jacket at him and goes to grab her phone and shoes in the other room. “You’re taking me to breakfast. Surely this town has a diner.”

“There is actually this great place--” Landon is explaining from in the kitchen, voice upbeat now that there’s a plan, but Hope doesn’t hear what all he says because there’s a text from Josie on her phone. 

A picture of her ceiling fan. _This made me think of you, too._

Josie remembered. Hope feels a swell of fondness wash over her as she looks at the phone. The smile she gives Landon as she meets him by the door is actually genuine. 

She’s in such a good mood, she doesn’t even care when the ‘great place’ Landon takes her to turns out to be IHOP, not some local spot like she’d imagined.

xx

Sunday night, Josie picks her up from the airport.

“Are you hungry? Or...?” Josie asks after hugging Hope hello and tossing her duffel into the backseat.

“Nah, I ate at the airport in Atlanta,” Hope answers, clicking her seatbelt. 

“Home it is,” Josie smiles, throwing the car into gear and pulling away from the curb.

Hope used to think _home_ was New Orleans. And then, after things get serious with Landon, that shifted to be wherever he was, wherever they were together.

It was great seeing him this weekend and she didn’t realize just how much she missed him until she was with him. But now… As she settles into the familiar smell of Josie’s car, listens to the playlist she knows Josie reserves for introspective car rides, she feels the knot that’s been hard in her chest all weekend begin to unclench.

She takes in a deep breath. She feels lighter, now… Like he can breathe a little easier now that she’s beside the brunette.

“Yeah,” she says, watching through the window as the airport falls away behind them and they take the all too familiar road back to campus. “Home.”

xx

When they pull up to Hope’s apartment and Josie leaves the car running, Hope pauses with her hand on the door, confused. Josie was quiet the rest of the drive after that first interaction, but Hope didn’t think anything of it. It’s not unusual for them to sit quietly together. 

“You don’t wanna come up?”

Josie looks ahead through the windshield. Hope watches as she wrings the steering wheel before answering, “I can’t.”

“Can’t…?” Hope tilts her head, not used to Josie turning down a hangout.

“Yeah,” Josie says, fidgeting with the steering wheel and still not meeting Hope’s eyes. “I, uh, I have plans.”

“Oh.” There’s a beat and then Hope finds herself saying, “Well, do you wanna come over after?” She reaches out a hand to touch Josie’s sleeve and offers a smile. “I missed you this weekend.”

Josie still isn’t looking at her though and it’s making Hope’s stomach hurt. “I missed you, too, but I don’t know when I’ll be finished.”

“When has that ever mattered?” Hope laughs. It sounds desperate even to her ears. Hope is worried that if Josie doesn’t stop chewing on her bottom lip, she’ll bite it clean off.

“I mean, I may not be finished tonight. At all.”

“Oh,” Hope sits back in her seat. “Oh. You have a date.” The realization hits her square in the chest. 

“No,” Josie shakes her head, her tone hard. “Not a date. I told Raf I’d help him on his Fictions and Figures of Empire paper, and he warned me it may end up being an all-nighter kind of a project.”

“Raf,” Hope says stupidly. She can’t even be self-conscious of how off her conversational skills have been because she’s too busy being blindsided by the fact that Josie is picking spending time with _Rafael_ over spending time with _her_. 

Josie sighs. “Yes.” She presses her lips together in a tight line. “I figured you would be tired from your trip and wouldn’t want to do anything.”

“Yeah,” Hope says slowly, still trying to come to terms with how, for some reason, her chest suddenly feels like it's composed mainly of a gaping hole. “Okay.” 

Thankfully, she remembers herself. Remembers the end of last semester and how she almost lost Josie because of this same feeling. Hope schools her features and plasters on a smile that she knows her friend would know was fake if she was looking at her. 

“That's, that’s cool,” Hope says, nodding her head like a bobblehead. “I’m glad you and Raf are going to-- are getting some quality time together. I’m sure you’ll have that paper of his in tip-top shape. I, uh, I just remembered I have a mountain of laundry I should probably start working through, anyway, so.”

She knows she sounds a little deranged, babbling like this, in this strange high pitched voice she didn’t know she was capable of, but that doesn’t stop her from flinging open the car door and all but spilling out into the parking lot. Earlier, she’d been anxious not to leave with this tension between her and Josie, but now she feels she may asphyxiate if she has to spend one more second in there.

She doesn’t even know if she says bye or not, she’s so desperate to just get out of there. She makes it two steps before she hears Josie call out to her. 

“Hope, wait!”

Sucking in a breath, Hope steals herself and turns back to the car. 

Josie is leant into the backseat, holding the strap of Josie’s forgotten duffel. “Your bag,” she says through the now rolled down passenger window. 

The tentative smile that had been budding on Hope’s face falls straight through her stomach, past her feet, and splats on the concrete like a dropped egg. “Shit, yeah. Sorry. Stupid me.”

She opens the back door and grabs her bag feeling like an absolute doorknob. “Thanks for the ride,” she says, giving Josie a little two-finger salute like Landon and Raf always do and then beating a hasty retreat.

xx

Hours later, Hope finally gets up the nerve to text Josie what’s been rattling around in her brain since the brunette said it.

_just for the record: i’m never too tired for you._

Hope holds her phone to her lips for a minute, eyes closed, and debating pressing send. But it is the truth, and Hope figures this falls well under their honesty pact. 

She sends the text.

xx

The only reason Hope hears her phone ring over the music blasting through her headphones is that it vibrates off the stool next to her and nearly topples the drying rack for her paintbrushes. It is only by the grace of God that Hope doesn’t smear a line of cobalt across her canvas in surprise. 

She fumbles for the phone that’s still dancing along the floor, vibrating. It’s probably Landon checking in on her since she completely forgot to let him know she made it home okay.

It’s not.

“Hello...” Hope says the word like the first step onto an ice rink.

“Did you mean what you said?” Josie asks. “In your text.”

“Yes,” Hope answers quickly. Confidently. Gone is the tentativeness of her greeting.

She listens to Josie suck in a breath on the other end. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Raf and I should be finished here in a couple of hours.”

Hope closes her eyes. She smiles for the first time since getting back to campus. “I’ll leave the front hall light on.”

xx

True to her word, two hours later Josie unlocks Hope’s front door with the key Hope gave her months ago. She’d had it made for just such an instance as this. 

Truthfully, it could not come a moment too soon. Hope has been circling the drain since shortly after they hung up. The relief of knowing Josie was over whatever weirdness had been happening in the car all but sapping her of her energy. She was determined to stay awake though, damnit. To prove to Josie she had meant what she’d texted her. 

She would _never_ be too tired for Josie. Hello, is that not what best-friendship is all about?

That’s not to say she hasn’t been ready for bed, sprawled on the couch for the past hour, of course. That was just preemptive planning.

She sits up when Josie comes into the room, turning off the hall light behind her. “Hey,” Hope says around a yawn. “You came.” 

“You stayed up,” Josie says, carefully dropping her backpack into the armchair.

“Of course I did,” Hope says, unable to temper the tired smile she knows is stretching across her face. “I missed you.” She reaches out a hand to the brunette standing on the other side of the coffee table.

Josie takes her hand. She looks just as tired as Hope feels when she says, “I missed you, too.”

“Then come here.”

Josie doesn’t fight as Hope pulls her down on top of her on the couch. She just snuggles down into her chest and lets Hope wrap her arms around her back, squeezing her tightly. Hope pushes one hand up to cup the back of Josie’s neck, softly kneading the skin there like Josie had done for her when Hope had a migraine last month. She cradles her friend close.

Even now, at 3:00 a.m. after a no doubt full day, Josie smells fresh like laundry detergent and her body wash. Hope can’t help but bury her nose in the top of her friend’s head and breathe it all in. She hasn’t felt like she’s really made it home until this moment right here. She kisses Josie’s hair once, right where it parts down the middle, then snags the remote to click ‘yes, I am still watching’ on Netflix. 

She’s so tired, in the shuffle and movement, she thinks she feels Josie return the kiss to her chest, just above the faded New Orleans Saints logo on her t-shirt. But when she cranes her head down to look at the other girl, her eyes are already closed. She must have imagined it. God, she is tired. 

The exhaustion from the weekend and traveling and worrying about her and Josie all pile up and push her under. The pillow behind her head is probably going to give her a crick in her neck and her feet are hot, tangled up in the blanket, but Josie is already breathing evenly against her chest and Hope relaxes into the feel of her best friend sleeping against her. 

She falls asleep before the bakers in the tent on tv even finish their technical challenge. 

xx

The last week of regular classes, before reading week and exams start, MG proposes to Lizzie. This comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, except for Lizzie herself, who apparently almost fainted. 

“He’s been planning this since like the fifth grade,” Josie tells Hope.

It’s absurdly romantic. Hope finds out later that Josie helped him plan it because of course, she did. This is also no surprise. Josie is all romance.

They have a big party that Sunday to celebrate. All of Lizzie and MG’s friends come, eager to celebrate the happy couple and also have one last good time before studying begins in earnest. Their dad and mom drive up from Mystic Falls and they rent out the back room of the pub they play trivia every Thursday night. 

Even with her parents there, Lizzie gets drunk. Actually, Hope is pretty sure she saw Dr. Saltzman buying rounds of whiskey at the bar for him, MG, and Lizzie to shoot. 

Either way, when Lizzie stands up from the table and clinks a knife against her glass, Josie reaches out a hand to steady her. Josie turns to Hope and rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but keeps her hand firmly on the back of Lizzie’s sundress as her twin starts to address the room.

“Alright, everyone. MG already had a chance to profess his undying love to me, so you guys are gonna have to listen to me return the favor. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

“News to me,” Josie quips under her breath to Hope who has to stifle her chuckle by clearing her throat and taking a swig of her drink.

MG is beaming across the table at his fiancée like he’d happily let her make all the rules for the rest of his life. Which is probably exactly what will happen. “Well, if you insist,” he tells her, leaning forward onto the table with his chin in his hands like he can’t wait to hear where this goes.

“I know everyone says they’re marrying their best friend, but most of the time that’s total bullshit. MG,” she looks him in the eyes. “You really are mine.”

Everyone ' _aw'_ s appropriately. 

“For most of my life whenever anything happened, good or bad, the first person I wanted to tell was Josie. But then, MG entered the picture and started taking over that role. And just. Never left. Jo, you're my sister so you always have to listen to me,” she reaches a hand back to grab the hand Josie still has on her back, supporting her. “But MG? He _chose_ to do it. No offense, his sacrifice means more.”

Everyone laughs at the face Lizzie and Josie make at one another.

The alcohol has made Lizzie a little rambly. No one seems to mind, though, because with every second more of her speech and of MG looking at her like she hung the moon, it’s just so obvious these two kids are meant for each other.

“I think everyone who has spent even a few minutes with MG knows how special he is,” she says, gesturing at MG as though directing everyone to see just what she means. “For a long time I was dumb and stubborn and blind to how good of a thing I had right in front of me. I was so stuck on what I thought a perfect partner was supposed to look like, what a perfect romance should be like, that I didn’t see the actual perfect-for-me person already by my side. And MG was so patient through it all, and--”

Josie turns to Hope to whisper something but whatever it is Hope doesn’t hear it. Her ears are ringing.

What Lizzie is saying sounds so familiar. Hope knows _exactly_ how that feels. 

But she doesn’t feel it with Landon.

She feels it with Josie.

xx

Holy fuck. 

She ducks out shortly thereafter, making up a completely illogical capstone meeting to escape. She’s pretty sure Josie doesn’t buy it, from the furrow of her brow, but thankfully Josie lets her escape all the same. Hope almost turns back around and stays, though, when she sees Raf make his way over to Josie. She allows herself one moment to look, make sure he keeps his hands firmly inside the pockets of his khakis and away from Josie before she shakes herself and hightails it out of there like there’s a green-eyed monster hot on her heels.

While her feelings regarding Raf getting too close to Josie aren't new, everything else sure as hell is. She doesn’t even know how it happened but she thinks she is in love with Josie Saltzman. It's like she laid down on the couch, not intending to fall asleep, and the next thing she knows she’s opening her eyes and it’s dark outside and two hours have passed and she’s in love with her best friend. 

Holy shit. 

She calls her Aunt Freya and basically has a panic attack. The only difference between now and the call at the end of January is that she's at least in the privacy of her car when it all comes spilling out of her like word vomit, not just the sidewalk between her apartment and campus. Small mercies.

xx

Freya shows up that evening with a warm hug and a request for Hope to take her to the nearest liquor store. Hope doesn’t know if this last one is on account of how dire her aunt finds the situation with Josie or just the fact that Hope doesn’t have anything harder than a bottle of red in her apartment. 

“I would be the world’s worst gay aunt if I didn’t show up for my only niece’s first gay panic,” she says, crushing Hope in a hug on her doorstep. “Keelin tried to pack some rainbow streamers from when she and I had our 5th-anniversary last year, but I managed to escape without them.”

“It isn’t that kind of coming out,” Hope sniffle-laughs into her aunt’s blonde hair.

“Try telling that to her,” Freya says, depositing her bag in the front entryway, then yanking Hope towards her car. “She thinks every event is a streamers kind of party.” 

xx

Freya finally settles on two bottles of booze that don’t have the inner bar-tender in her turning her nose up. 

“People really live like this?” she asks Hope as they exit the store. She holds Hope out at arm’s length to give her an appraising once over. “Not just people, my own niece, too?”

Hope rolls her eyes and gets in the car. “And here I thought you’d be pleased I hadn’t turned into an alcoholic up here.”

“There’s alcoholism and there’s living a fully enriched life, Hope Mikaelson,” her aunt says as they pull out of the parking lot and head back to. “Have your years in the BIg Easy taught you nothing?”

xx

“So, you really didn’t know?” Freya asks, several palomas later. 

“No!” Hope says indignantly. “I thought all female friendships were this intense!”

Freya fixes her with a look. If she didn't already feel like the world's dimmest wlw lightbulb this look would seal the deal.

“I can’t believe you’ve lived with me since 8th grade and you’re only _now_ realizing heterosexuality is not in fact compulsory. I have truly failed you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hope says, waving her hand blearily at the other woman. “If I ever leave this apartment again, I’m totally lodging a complaint with the board of directors. Lucky for you, I have no such plans.”

Freya mixes her another drink and Hope ignores the text messages racking up on her phone.

xx

The next morning, Hope wakes up to a tequila hangover and a concerned best friend.

“You just disappeared yesterday,” Josie says when Hope opens the front door. Josie barges past her and heads straight to the living room like she’s on a mission. Hope curses her small stature and the alcohol making everything a little swoopy and wiggly.

She does a quick 360, taking in the extra boots by the door, the obviously feminine jacket thrown over the back of the chair, and last but not least, the shot glasses lined up like soldiers on the coffee table. Josie whirls on Hope. 

“What happened?” she asks, equal parts confused, hurt, and suspicious. Its a lot for Hope to absorb.

Freya chooses that moment to come stumbling out of Hope’s bedroom wearing a pair of Hope’s pajamas. 

“Jesus, I forgot how much I dislike college,” she says as she rubs her eyes. "Everything is ten times more intense here. Like a bloody magnifier."

Hope sees the moment Freya realizes they have guests. Her face journey says it all. She goes from confused to suspicious to downright gleeful. Hope sags against the couch at the last one. She already knows this is not going to go well for her. 

“You must be Josie,” her aunt says with a predatory smile.

“I must be,” Josie says, not backing down. “And who are you?”

“Ooh, I like her,” Freya stage-whispers to Hope before heading to the kitchen for coffee.

Hope is left to answer Josie’s question. “Josie, please meet Freya.”

Josie’s whole body comes together and says ‘what the fuck’ in one concerted effort. “Freya as in your _Aunt_ Freya?”

“One and the same,” Hope says, rubbing her forehead in vain. This headache seems determined to make the most of its duration.

Josie steps closer, arms folded over her chest and pique clear on her face as she whispers, “You didn’t tell me your aunt was visiting.” The accusation is all too clear in her tone.

Hope opens her mouth, no doubt prepared to put her foot in it in a poor attempt at explaining things when Freya pokes her head into the room, the smell of coffee following her. “It was a surprise to us all,” her aunt says serenely. 

Hope glares daggers at her. Freya appears to have performed some sort of black magic in the other room as she no longer seems to be struggling under a crushing hangover like Hope. 

Not for the first time, Hope regrets moving away from home. Maybe if she stayed in New Orleans, she wouldn’t have lost her tolerance. Maybe she wouldn't have had to spend eight months spending 98% of her waking and sleeping moments with a girl before she realized she was in love with her either. Who knows. The possibilities are endless.

Meanwhile. Back in the now, Josie is tilting her head looking at the two of them like she's trying to see a resemblance. There isn't one, Hope wants to tell her. If only so Josie will stop looking at them so closely.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Josie says to the blonde woman, apparently attempting to ameliorate her initial hell-hath-no-fury impression now that it has been established the woman who slept in Hope’s bed is a relative, not an interloper. 

“So have I,” Freya says, her smile looking far too knowing for Hope’s liking. “You simply must join us for breakfast.” 

Hope jumps in, “Oh, no, I’m sure Josie has much better things to do this morning than putting up with your bullshit.”

"Your bullshit and you know it," Freya corrects.

Josie ignores Hope's pleading eyes. “I’d love to.”

Hope sprawls back into the with a groan. She knows she is going to regret this.

xx

They haven’t even received their pancakes yet, and Freya has already told enough embarrassing stories to last Hope a lifetime, thank you.

“If you two will just excuse me,” she says, cheeks flaming as she pretends to duck under the table so she can scuttle away.

“Stop being dramatic,” Freya whacks at her with the silverware set up. “I haven’t even mentioned the middle school musical theater debacle of ‘08, now have I?”

Josie hauls Hope back up into the booth, laughing. “I like your aunt.”

“Really?” Hope asks. “You can have her.” She emphasizes the statement by sticking her tongue out at Freya. 

“Oh hush,” Josie says, squeezing Hope’s thigh, just above her knee. “I like you, too.”

Hope gulps. She pulls her eyes away from Josie’s smiling brown ones to see her aunt looking at her across the table with waggling eyebrows. Freya lifts her hands to make a no doubt lewd hand gesture, but stops abruptly when Josie looks over. 

Thankfully, Freya is smooth enough to manage a re-direct and instead flags down a passing waiter to ask for another pitcher of mimosas. “Can we get another round, please? My niece apparently needs to be drunk in order to enjoy my company.”

xx

“Did I mention that I really like your aunt,” Josie says after they’ve waved goodbye to Freya.

“You may have,” Hope grouses. “Once or a few hundred times.”

“Someone sounds jealous,” Josie sing-songs as she follows a huffing Hope back into her apartment.

“Me? Jealous of the crush you have developed on my crazy aunt in the span of three and a half hours?”

Josie grins and nods.

“Fine,” Hope says and Josie squeals, grabbing her around the middle and hugging her. “Maybe a little.”

“I knew it,” Josie says smugly before dead-falling backward onto the couch, dragging Hope with her. Hope squawks the whole way down to the cushions.

After rearranging their limbs into a comfortable position, Hope says, “That was a genuine invitation she extended to you, y’know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re more than welcome to visit us in New Orleans any time.”

Josie looks at her, chewing on her lip to keep from smiling any bigger. She hugs Hope that much closer to her and says, “Good to know.”

xx

Hope doesn’t talk to Landon that next week. 

Something about the thought of talking to him right now is just too much. She imagines listening to his sweet, earnest, easy-going voice and wants to throw up.

She has studying and exams as an excuse, at least. She tells him this the night Freya leaves and Landon accepts it easily. He wishes her luck and tells her he loves her and doesn’t call or face-time again. He just gives her space without a care in the world while she weighs their relationship and runs every scenario involving them staying together or breaking up.

Hope is equal parts relieved and disheartened that he is so quick to back off.

But then there is actual studying to tackle and her capstone presentation to prepare for and she tries, tries, tries to remove all thoughts of any relationship from her head and focus less on her happy ending hanging in the balance and instead on passing these goddamn classes. 

It’s almost a joke. Amidst everything that’s happening this semester, Hope has almost forgotten about the whole reason she is even in this place: her _classes_.

She’s graduating in less than two weeks, for chrissakes. Of all the times to have a crisis of conscience. 

“Life has a timing all its own,” Freya says in that infuriating ‘I’ve had a few glasses of wine with my lovely wife and all problems seem so far removed from me that I can’t even be bothered by them’ voice when Hope calls to whine about the unfairness of the situation all over again.

Hope wants to pull out her own hair. “What does that even _mean_ , Frey.”

“It means, Hope, that everything is happening exactly as it is supposed to happen.”

Hope cannot see how that is even remotely possible. She tells her aunt as much.

Keelin gets on the line then. “Hope, honey?”

“Hi, Keelin,” Hope sighs.

“Your aunt is being a little smug right now because she seems to have forgotten what it's like to be young and in love,” Keelin says like she might be swatting at her wife as she does it. “Just focus on your exams for now. Everything else will slide into place afterwards. Trust me. I know how you Mikaelson women work.”

It's only after they’ve hung up that the first part of what Keelin said sinks in. 

‘in love’

All week, as she reads and preps for her finals, the phrase buzzes in the background of her consciousness like a mosquito. Hasn’t she supposed to have been _in love_ this whole time for the last four years of being with Landon? 

Why does now feel so, so earth-shakingly different? Is it the timing -- graduation, her parents' anniversary? Or is it... Just, well. Is it just _Josie_?

xx

It turns out, Hope's freakouts aren't relegated only to her relationship viability.

Hope’s capstone presentation is in less than two hours and she’s already made Josie listen to her run through the whole thing three times this morning alone. Josie, who is doing her own test prep, has listened attentively each time. 

When Hope stands up and begins it for a fourth time, Josie closes her book and says, “Hope. Honey. You’re spiraling.”

“I’m not spiraling, Josie, I’m _preparing_.”

In response, Josie sits her down, takes the notes out of her hands, and kneels between her knees. She holds Hope’s hands tightly in her lap and forces her to look her in the eyes.

“Hope Andrea Mikaelson.”

“Josette Lucas Saltzman.”

“You are going to go in there and you are going to fucking _nail_ this presentation. Those professors aren’t going to know what hit them. You are going to absolutely dazzle them with your research and win them over with your beautifully thought out argument.”

“But…” Hope looks away, eyes wide. She’s already seen the doom coming for her and no one is going to convince her otherwise. No matter how convicted Josie sounded just now. “What if I don’t?” 

This presentation makes up thirty percent of her final grade. If she fails, Hope legitimately does not know if she will graduate in a couple of weeks. 

Josie tugs her back to the right now. “Then,” she says calmly. “You are going to come back here and we are going to watch every John Hughes movie you can think of and we will get so drunk you won’t even remember what the fuck a capstone is.”

“And then?”

“And then, tomorrow, we will wake up and you will think about what problems your professors had with your presentation, learn from them, and then move on. Okay?”

Hope nods. “Okay.”

Maybe she can do this. It doesn’t seem quite so scary with Josie’s hands in hers and her eyes watching her so assuredly. She nods again and then grabs her flashcards. 

xx

Later, Hope comes back from her presentation to find Josie right where she left her. 

The brunette has an exam in a couple of hours that she’s cramming for, and she’s not quite as frantic as Hope was earlier, but she’s obviously taking it seriously. 

Josie’s hair, which Hope knows for a fact hasn’t been washed since she showed up at Hope’s apartment two days ago, is up in a bun. There are no fewer than two writing implements sticking out of it. 

One hand is frantically writing another outline, the other is buried in the bag of disgusting seaweed snacks she loves so much. Hope hates them, personally, but they’re Josie’s favorite stress food. After Josie plowed through the last bag in a single afternoon earlier this week, Hope swung by the store on her way back from her Modern Middle East exam and stocked up. Watching her now, Hope imagines there are little green crumbs everywhere, between the couch cushions, all over Josie’s notes, and in the creases of her book. 

Hope walks into the apartment and takes one look at her and just _knows_ she is irrevocably in love with this girl.

She’s been dancing around the truth, avoiding the whole thing for the last week in favor of panicking instead over her _final_ final exams. After the phone call with Freya and Keelin, Hope had taken all of her complicated feelings for her friend and for her boyfriend -- because, yes, she still loves Landon -- and shoved them under the rug. It had been working like a dream (read: nightmare) until this moment. 

She takes one look at Josie sitting on her couch, unshowered and looking a little deranged, and knows that while she may love Landon, she is totally in love with Josie. 

Josie swipes at her cheek, getting more crumbs everywhere. 

Fuck, Hope is in love with her. Keelin was right. She has figured it out.

“Hey,” Josie says, finishing writing her sentence before looking up. “How did it go?”

Hope has to shake her head to clear the fog that’s descended. She was so wrapped up in how fucking much she loves Josie she forgot she just completed the most important step of her educational career so far. She knows what she has to do now.

But first, Josie has one last final, and Hope would be a horrible best friend if she messed that up. So she sucks up her feelings for a few more minutes and answers Josie’s question.

“Good,” she manages. Then, when Josie looks unconvinced and concerned, she adds, “No, no, it was good. It went better than I expected, a few minor bumps at the beginning but then totally smooth sailing.”

“I knew you’d kill it,” Josie beams before turning back to the pages lying in her lap.

“Yeah,” Hope says dumbly. She’s still a little dazed. “Uh, can I help with any of that?”

“Nah, I’m just about finished and then I’m gonna walk on over.”

“Do you want me to walk with you?”

“You just came from there,” Josie smiles bemusedly. “Wouldn’t you rather, like, sprawl on the sofa and rejoice over never having to go back?”

“I mean I still have to go back for graduation…”

“Oh, right…” Josie purses her lips. “Kind of anticlimactic then.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to save my celebratory Nicole-Kidman-post-Tom-cruise-divorce moment until then, I suppose.”

“I suppose so.” Josie grins. “More time for you to practice.”

“So, I’ll walk you?” Hope nods towards the explosion of papers on the coffee table. “And I can quiz you on some of that stuff as we go?”

“That would actually be amazing.”

“Great. I’ll fill up your water bottle. Just lemme know when you’re ready to go.”

“Hey, can I borrow a t-shirt actually?” Josie asks, looking down at her own which is covered in seaweed snacks and… what may be this morning's spilled coffee.

Hope just shakes her head fondly. “Yeah. Of course. Grab whatever you want.”

When she said it, Hope expected Josie to grab one of the t-shirts of Hope’s she usually wears when she sleeps over and forgets to bring pajamas. She does not expect Josie to walk back into the living room wearing Hope’s flag football jersey. 

Hope does a double-take.

“What? It’s good luck,” Josie says innocently enough when Hope’s mouth still hasn’t closed. “We won our season with you wearing this jersey.”

Thankfully, Hope is saved from further short-circuiting at seeing Josie wearing her last name when Josie starts dragging her hair back into another bun. Hope steps up, “Here, what if I french braid it for you while you give this outline one last once over?” 

Josie steps away instinctively. “No, my hair is disgusting. You are not touching it when it's like this.”

“It’ll be even more disgusting if you keep dragging those seaweed fingers through it.”

Josie pouts but sits in front of the couch. The ‘thank you’ Josie says to Hope as she settles in behind her is so soft and sweet and shy Hope can’t help but melt a little. She wants to lean forward and hug Josie to her, kiss her temple and her hair, regardless of how many days it's been since she washed it, because even in the throes of finals-sloven-stress she’s the most precious thing Hope has ever touched.

But she doesn’t. Because now is not the time for that.

So instead, Hope grins and gets to work. She focuses on Josie’s soft (but yes, admittedly kind of dirty, but no less beautiful!) brown hair in her hands, is mindful of the many piercings studding Josie’s ears, and tries not to smile too hard at seeing her own last name on the back of Josie’s shirt. 

xx

She calls Landon while Josie is at her exam and breaks things off with him.

Now that her feelings have settled, there’s no reason to draw it out any longer. He deserves to know. Even if the thought of breaking his heart really kind of makes her want to vomit in the bushes along the sidewalk. 

She should have known better than to worry about him getting angry, though. That’s just not Landon’s style. Even now. He’s too good of a guy to yell or make a scene. Even when she is smashing his plans for their future.

She has to close her eyes hard at his quiet acceptance. She really doesn't know how she got so lucky to have been loved by him. She's learned a lot these last four years. Things she didn't think she'd ever get the chance to know. 

“You seem happier with her. You know that? I just want you to be happy.” He earnestly says at the end of the call and Hope sucks in a sob.

“I want you to be happy, too,” she says, meaning it more than anything. 

It's a quiet, soft end to the last four years of Hope’s life. When she hangs up the call, though, she knows that's what this was: a clean break. 

She slips his ring off her finger and sits down against her oak tree. The branches above her head are thick and leafy and loud as they rustle in the wind. She holds the silver band between her fingers for a moment longer then sets it down next to her. It shines amongst the dirt and roots and grass sprouts. Hope leans back against the tree and doesn’t look at it again. 

In another hour Josie’s exam will be over and she’ll go meet her for it. This may be an end, but she prays that there’s a beginning for her just around the corner.

xx

Hope’s heart stops cold in her chest.

She really should learn to stop waiting for Josie outside of this damn English building. It only causes her problems. Because of course, just like at the start of the semester, Josie is alone. And of course, just like at the start of the semester, it’s Raf holding the door open as they walk out into the sunshine looking like two people that just finished the last final between them and summer break. 

They’re smiling at each other so brightly Hope has to look away. Their body language is open and carefree and Hope can read their happiness from the other side of the courtyard. She prays that it’s because they both just aced their exams, but she doesn’t hold her breath. 

She smiles like that when she’s with Josie, too.

For a brief moment, watching Josie laugh at something Raf says, Hope considers backing away. Leaving Josie to… Well, whatever this is with Raf.

Just as she’s stepping back, about to pull her phone out and fake a call, Josie looks up, scanning the courtyard and landing on her. 

Hope thought she’d been smiling when she was chatting with Raf, but the moment Josie’s eyes lock onto hers it’s like the sun comes out from the clouds. And Hope is standing right in its light.

Josie must excuse herself from Raf, because before Hope even realizes it Josie is standing in front of her, hands gripping her backpack straps, smile stretching across her face, and still wearing that damn jersey of Hope’s.

“Hey.” Josie taps the toe of her sneaker to Hope’s own in greeting.

“Hey.” Hope finds herself unconsciously mirroring that damn smile. “Uh, how was your test?”

“Good! Really good actually,” Josie says nodding her head before making a face. “But now I need to go ice my wrist.” She holds it up for Hope’s inspection, letting it flop limply in fatigue.

“Yeesh.” Hope gently takes the proffered appendage and pretends to inspect it. “Those essay questions do not fuck around, do they?”

“No,” Josie pouts. “Good thing I don’t have to look at another one of them, for the next three months.” Then with a simple motion, she’s twisting her hand to hold Hope’s and tugging her off in the direction of Hope’s apartment.

“What about Raf?” 

“What about him?”

“Does he,” Hope swallows and forces herself to finish, “not want to come celebrate with us?”

Josie shoots her a look like she isn’t being as smooth as she hoped. “And have him horning in on our girl time? _Pass_.”

Hope feels her heart unclench in her chest.

“Besides, I cannot do another thing before I shower,” Josie is saying beside her. “You deserve a medal for touching this hair. I was repulsing _myself_ during that exam.” She picks in disgust at one of her limp braids with her free hand.

“I think you look nice,” Hope says.

Josie smiles and bumps their hips. “You are legally obligated to say that.”

Hope snorts. “Oh, was it in the contract?”  
  


“Don’t tell me you didn’t read the fine print?” Josie crows. “What good is that business degree if you can’t even navigate a simple friendship agreement?”

And there it is. 

_‘friendship’_

That word. A source of unimaginable warmth for Hope for the past year suddenly burns like hot coal in her thoughts. How many times has she called Josie her friend. Not just said it, but reveled in it. She was so proud to call Josie her friend. Proud to have something securing them together.

She wants to shake her past self for being so clueless. The signs had been there all along, she was just too blind to notice them. 

But now that she knows how she feels, how she’s _felt_ , she can’t unsee it. 

Now, hearing Josie refer to her as such sends a stab of sadness through her so sharp she pulls to a halt, stopping Josie with her by their still connected hands.

Oh how the fucking tables have fucking turned.

“Actually,” Hope says suddenly. “Josie. I need to tell you something.” 

“If it’s about the friendship contract, I’m afraid that ship has already sailed. That bitch was signed, notarized, and filed a looooong time ago.”

“Josie.”

Josie must finally see the panic in Hope’s eyes because she stops joking. “What?”

Now that Josie is actually looking at her, brown eyes conceded, Hope feels herself faltering. Does she really want to do this? 

“Hope, you’re kind of scaring me...” Josie chuckles uncomfortably.

Does she really want to ruin a good thing? “Yeah,” Hope says staring hard at Josie’s face, memorizing her features in case this is the last time she'll be able to look at them in person, face-to-face, not through old pictures on her phone. “I’m kind of scaring me, too.”

Josie grabs her other hand. “Hey. You can tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out, okay? Just tell me and we can figure it out together.”

“That’s the thing,” Hope’s voice cracks. “I want us to do this together.”

Josie’s face pinches in confusion. “‘This’ what?”

“Everything." She breathes the word out like the prayer it is.

“Hope. We already do everything together,” Josie says slowly like she’s talking to a wild animal. Hope kind of feels like one honestly. 

She has about as much social tact as one when she finds herself abruptly saying, “I broke up with Landon.”

Josie pulls back like Hope just spat at her. “You did what?”

“I don’t,” Hope flounders, desperate to explain this to Josie. A tall order given she herself only _fully_ understood it less than two hours ago. “I realized I don’t love him. Not like that. Not anymore.”

“Oh, Hope…” Josie says, obviously thinking Hope needs to be comforted.

Hope shakes her head. “No, no. It’s not-” She pulls one hand away from Josie’s to press it into her eyes hard. She feels the tinges of a stress headache coming on. “Gah!” She thought coming to terms with this was hard, but that was nothing in comparison to verbally formulating it.

“Hope,” Josie says gently, stepping forward to move Hope’s hand from her eyes, no doubt expecting it to be hiding tears. 

Hope turns away and closes her eyes and goes for it. “I don’t love him. Not like I love you.” 

Her confession is met with dead silence. Hope cautiously looks at her friend. Josie is staring at her with an unreadable expression. There are too many emotions in her eyes for Hope to categorize. 

But she’s still standing here, still holding Hope’s hand. So Hope continues.

“I think,” she says breathlessly, “that I maybe haven’t for a _while_ now. I just… Didn’t realize it.”

“Hope,” Josie says, voice even though her eyes are still awash and her lip is still creased from the brutal hold her teeth had on it a moment ago. “What _exactly_ are you saying right now?”

Hope feels like one of those butterflies in the natural history museum that’s been stuck through with pins, spread out for easy viewing. Josie’s eyes are so intent on her face right now, she doesn’t know if she can breathe let alone explain herself. 

But she _has_ to. She’s started this, now she has to finish it. 

“I’m saying,” she draws in a breath as big as her shuddery lungs will allow and straightens her shoulders, because she is not ashamed of this; she will stand tall as she tells her friend-- “That I love you, Jo. You’re my best friend. But I can’t pretend like this isn’t more on my end. I wasn’t looking for it, but I can’t even pretend like I don’t know how it happened. You’re just-- You’re everything, Josie.” 

Once she starts talking, she can’t stop talking. It just comes pouring out of her. 

She understands Lizzie’s babbling engagement party speech a little more now, is sympathetic to the emotional word vomit, because fuck her if the same thing isn’t happening right this very minute to her own stupid mouth. Now that she’s opened it, she just can’t seem to close it. She needs Josie to hear everything. Needs Josie to understand.

“I don’t think I could have not fallen in love with you if I _tried_. Jesus, you’ve been everything to me the past year. I want to be everything for you, too. If you’ll let me.”

“Everything, huh?”

“Yes!” Hope exclaims. “Josie, the past year has been the happiest, most content year of my life because of you. I want to make you as happy as you make me.” 

“And what if,” Josie says, still watching Hope hard, “next year comes and the happiness isn’t here anymore? What if I’m stressed about graduating and I’m grumpy all the time?”

“Oh, you mean like how I’ve been this past year?”

Josie smirks. “Yeah.”

“Can I tell you something?” Hope smiles, tugging Josie a little closer, because even though Josie hasn’t said anything yet to suggest she returns Hope’s feelings, her body language is giving nothing but green lights as she steps closer to Hope so they’re breathing the same air.

“Before I met you, I wasn’t a morning person,” Hope says. “I didn’t like waking up, I didn’t like getting out of bed, I didn't like waiting for the coffee to make. I didn’t like any of it. And then I started spending my mornings with you.” 

“And now you have someone to make sure you don’t sleep through your alarm and/or to make the coffee for you?”

“Those are both nice bonuses, yes,” Hope grins. “But it’s more than that. Listen, I know that it’s not always going to be mornings spent dancing in the kitchen while we make breakfast and the coffee magically doesn’t burn no matter how long it takes us to drink it. I know we’re gonna be grouchy and get on each other’s nerves and I know most mornings will actually just be us grunting at each other over bowls of cereal before ducking out the door. But I want those, too. I want every type of morning there is. I want it all. With you. Because you make everything better, Josie. Even when I’m a big ball of brooding, I feel lighter with you next to me.”

Hope sucks in a big breath. “So what do you say? Do you wanna maybe take this friendship to the next level?”

“I say you’re still pretty clueless about friendship,” then, before Hope can say anything, Josie tugs her the last few inches and they’re kissing and--

_wow_.

Hope should not be surprised. Truly, she shouldn't. She'd already known how much more everything with Josie is. Of course, that should extend to kissing her. It's just. It's kind of a lot. The feel of Josie's lips against her own. It's a lot, but it's all so so good.

Josie tilts her chin down a little and Hope pulls her closer, desperate for Josie to swipe her tongue over the seam of her mouth again. Jesus, how did she spend the last twenty-one, almost twenty-two years of her life not doing this?

Josie breaks away with a ragged laugh.

“What?” Hope smiles dazedly, honestly still a little strung out on that kiss.

“Nothing,” Josie beams. “I just realized I think I owe Lizzie a lottery ticket.”

Hope laughs, too, still confused but clearly infected with Josie’s good humor. “What?” She says again.

“Don’t worry about it.” Then Josie kisses her again and Hope can’t worry about anything but the feeling of Josie’s lips on her own. Not even about how they’re making out on a sidewalk, still half a block from her apartment.

A car drives by honking and catcalling and Hope flips them the bird without pulling away because that car can go fuck itself if it thinks she is going to stop kissing Josie _any_ time soon.

xx

Later, after they've managed to pry themselves from each other's lips and make it back to Hope’s apartment, Josie joins Hope in the living room. True to her word, the first thing she did when they made it back was shower. Now she's standing in front of Hope, hair wet and down around her shoulders and Hope can't look anywhere else.

Josie’s wearing the hideous bleached orange sweatshirt of Hope’s that Josie for some inexplicable reason absolutely adores. Truthfully, Hope would have thrown the monstrosity out last semester when she found it in the bottom of her chest of drawers. But Josie had taken one look at it and commandeered it for every movie nights or balcony-wine-hang-out. So now Hope thinks she’ll never get rid of it. 

Hope’s heart warms at the sight of her in it now. The magic of Josie is that she can make even this bag of an XXL sweatshirt unfathomably appealing.

Josie’s fingers are playing with the cuffs and two things suddenly become very very obvious to Hope. One, while Josie _is_ wearing Hope’s sweatshirt, Josie is _not_ wearing pants underneath. And two, all of those less than innocent thoughts less-than-sober-Hope has had throughout the last year appear to have escaped from the box she’d thought she’d secured them inside. 

Hope’s mouth goes dry.

She’s seen Josie in various states of undress over the past year, between basically living together and Josie’s propensity towards short shorts and cropped tops, Hope kind of thought she’d become immune to Josie’s smooth skin. Josie takes a step towards the couch, bringing her long, tan legs that much closer to Hope and proves her wrong.

There’s only the barest reminiscence of her flag uniform short tan line. Which probably means that even though Hope had turned down the invitation, Josie and Lizzie have spent time laying out on their patio. Hope’s mind helpfully conjures the image of Josie in a swimsuit and then in less than a swimsuit.

She feels a blush working up her neck at that last one.

Hope isn’t one hundred percent sure on all the queer girl rules, yet, but she thinks its probably poor manners to drool over your girl’s legs like this. She really doesn’t care. She can’t look away. 

She didn’t even realize just how desperate to look she’s been until the option is presented in front of her. She’s pretty sure Josie asked her something about what movie she wants to watch, but Hope can’t hear her over the sound of her blood rushing south. 

It pools in her belly, hot and staticky. Demanding. Now that she’s allowed her body to want, it’s wanting with every fiber. Every nerve ending from her hair to her toes appears to be bent in this direction.

“Hope,” Josie smiles softly, coming to a stop in front of where Hope is sitting dumbstruck on the couch. "Did you hear any of what I just said?"

“Was it about what an idiot I've been this past year to not realize just how attracted I am to you?” Hope asks distractedly. She can’t look away from where the hem of the sweatshirt brushes the tops of Josie’s thighs.

“You’re staring.”

“Can you blame me?”

Josie laughs, clear and bright. Obviously pleased.

Hope reaches out, slowly, so painfully slowly, telegraphing her move so that Josie can step away or stop her if she wants to. She lets the tips of her fingers brush high against the skin of the outside of Josie’s thighs. She hears the sharp intake of breath above her. Cuts her eyes up to Josie’s face.

The light is slanting and gold across the room from the half-open blinds. It catches Josie’s face in profile. Half lit, half shadowed, fully gorgeous. In this light, Josie’s eyes, usually the most comforting brown, are now a warm deep, deep amber. Hope feels like she’s already tipped and fallen into them, caught for eternity. 

They say there is power in a name. Hope’s never been more sure of the veracity of that statement than she is right inside of this moment. Now that she has a name for this tension between them… 

She swallows, lets her fingers rest flat against Josie’s skin. Not quite holding her, just… Touching. Josie shivers. Hope shivers, too. 

“I thought you wanted to watch a movie.” Josie’s voice is honeyed just like her eyes, which bore down into Hope’s own.

“It’s funny,” Hope says. “I thought I did, too. And then you walked in and…” She lets her eyes skate back down Josie’s body.

Josie reaches out, touches her fingers to Hope’s chin, tilts her face back up to regain eye-contact. It burns right through Hope. 

“And?” Josie prompts, smirking now. Like she knows the answer already but won't be denied hearing it after the last year of silence.

“And then I remembered I was allowed to look as much as I wanted to now.”

Josie hums in agreement. Then ends Hope's ability to form coherent thoughts with one line. “You can do more than look if you want.”

Hope’s nostrils flare, the desire tightening almost painfully around her spine. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Josie nods, lip caught between her teeth.

That’s all the confirmation Hope needs. 

She pulls Josie down into her lap, all but fusing their lips together. Josie has one hand on Hope’s shoulder keeping her balance, the other on her jaw, tilting their mouths to slant just so against one another. 

Hope groans into the kiss at the feel of Josie licking into her mouth. How stupid had she been to ignore this? To think there could have been a world wherein Hope didn’t want Josie to kiss her like this. Jesus, how has she lived this long without kissing this girl? 

Her hands are apparently making up for the lost time. They can’t seem to settle in one place. Too desperate to touch everything, to leave no inch of Josie’s soft-smooth legs unexplored. Josie seems more than happy to let it happen. Let Hope’s hands go from holding Josie’s knees on either side of Hope’s own hips to sweeping up Josie’s thighs to clutching Josie’s waist through the thick cotton of the sweatshirt. Hope’s thumbs dip beneath the bunched up, twisted fabric. 

Josie tilts down into her lap with purpose. Hope tightens her hold. Pulls Josie harder against her. 

“Do you think we’re going too fast?” Hope all but gasps against Josie’s lips. Josie is grinding down into her in a way that has Hope possessively sliding one hand up Josie’s sweatshirt to rest hot and firm against the small of her back, pulling Josie that much closer. 

“What if I told you,” Josie says, pulling away to kiss down Hope’s neck. “I’d literally been dreaming of doing this for months.”

Hope inhales hard through her nose. “Months?” 

The thought feels like a sledgehammer to the heart, forcing the blood out and down between her legs. The heat between Hope's thighs registers is a slick beat, pulsing in time with her heart, and it hits her that if she were to drag the hand currently on Josie’s hip just down and forward, she’d probably find Josie much the same. _Fuck._ It’s dizzying to comprehend.

“Yes,” Josie says hotly against her pulse point.

“And here I thought gays moved at warp speed.”

“Well, in my defense, _this_ gay thought you were straight.” 

Hope pulls Josie’s mouth back to hers, kissing her hard. “Let me change your mind on that,” she says, both hands skating up Josie’s sides now, pushing her sweatshirt up with them. 

“Please,” Josie says before taking matters into her own hands and tugging the sweatshirt up over her own head.

Hope is pleased to see she isn’t the only eager one here.

xx

When Josie calls Lizzie the next morning to let her know whats happened (‘she made me promise I’d tell her as soon as anything happened,’ Josie explained as she fished her phone from the floor), Lizzie actually screams. Like really and truly, Josie calls Lizzie and Lizzie screams in delight.

“I _knew_ it!” Hope hears clearly from the other side of the bed. Josie holds the phone away from her ear and puts it on speaker. Hope can hear what Lizzie is saying either way if she insists on talking at this volume, might as well save her eardrum in the process. “MG, THEY FINALLY DID IT!”

A slightly less ear-splitting “yay!” can be heard in the background. 

“Listen, Jo,” Lizzie says, suddenly serious and much closer to the microphone. “I’m happy for you, but if you and Hope beat MG and me to the altar and take the spotlight away from us, I will blacklist you. Do you hear me?”

Hope’s heart is in her throat at the suggestion. 

She and Josie. Married.

She thinks about what seeing her last name on Josie did to her yesterday and has to swallow audibly. Her heart dislodges and goes thunking into her chest cavity. It hits her sternum and kicks into gear so hard she’s worried Josie can hear it from the pillow next to her.

Josie seems completely unphased. She just rolls her eyes and says, “Deal.”

Hope thinks that’s probably for the best. She can be all up in her feels enough for both of them. Besides. There’s plenty of time for that later. Right now, Hope wants to dance with Josie in the kitchen while they make breakfast. 

And also maybe try that one thing on Josie that Josie did to her last night... 

But first: coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp. th-th-that's all, folx! 
> 
> i have a few other Hosie stories I'm slowly working on, but that's the end for this particular universe. thank you all so so much for joining me on this and for all of your wonderful comments along the way. you truly made it worth it! 
> 
> stay safe and I hope I'll see y'all around! :)


End file.
